Hall of Fame receiver Michael Irvin’s TV limbo has apparently ended.
According to John Ourand of Sports Business Journal, Irvin agreed to a deal on Monday to join the rotating cast of FS1’s Undisputed.
The move comes more than six months after Irvin was removed from NFL Network’s Super Bowl-week coverage over allegations made by an employee at the hotel where he was staying in Arizona. Prior to today, Irvin’s status with the league-owned broadcast network had remained apparently unresolved.
An NFL Network spokesperson did not respond to an email sent this morning inquiring about Irvin’s status.
One possible assumption would be that Irvin is exiting NFL Network. However, he wouldn’t be the first person to work concurrently for Fox and NFLN.
From time to time, a report had emerged that he was still suspended by the league. As I said Friday on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, at some point the process had to end.
The league needed to put him on the air, or fire him. Either Irvin did something that justified termination of employment, or he didn’t. A suspension lasting more than half of a year made no sense.
It still remains to be seen whether his time at NFL Network has concluded, and whether it was voluntary or involuntary.
Irvin has denied all allegations, and he has aggressively pursued legal rights against the hotel that sparked the events culminating in his suspension. Irvin has not initiated public proceedings regarding his status with NFL Network.
He surely has (or had) a contract at NFL Network, and that contract presumably contains language that would apply to the situation.
Setting aside whether Irvin did or didn’t say anything inappropriate to the hotel employee who complained, there’s a fair question of whether the NFL had any jurisdiction over off-duty behavior that resulted in no civil or criminal charges, and no allegation of any type of offensive physical contact. If, at worst, Irvin said something he shouldn’t have said during one conversation in a public place with someone who wasn’t a co-worker, how would that justify the league doing anything?
That doesn’t make it right, if he said something wrong. But how can the league take such aggressive action against an employee of its media operation for simply saying something he shouldn’t have said, especially when the league has looked the other way on alleged or actual off-field misconduct of multiple owners?
This is not a defense of whatever Irvin said, if he said something he shouldn’t have said. It’s a common-sense evaluation of his employment status. If the league thought what he supposedly did was bad enough to permit firing him, then the league should have done it. If the league didn’t think he should have been fired, then the league should have put him back to work.
For now, it’s still not clear whether the book has closed on his time with NFL Network. What is clear is that, per Ourand, Irvin will be starting a new chapter at FS1.