Sam Ponder and Robert Griffin III have been fired by ESPN, according to sources.
These are budget moves. These are the only two being let go as ESPN ends its fiscal year.
Story in progress and being updated here: https://t.co/imlI4S4FEc
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) August 15, 2024
Robert Griffin III, along with Sam Ponder, is out at ESPN after a pretty successful run at the network the last few years. Andrew Marchand reports these layoffs are purely budgetary, but Griffin’s firing comes shortly after he went at one of ESPN’s big boys.
Griffin posted a tweet directed at anybody still deriding Florida State and Seminoles fans for being upset about being excluded from last year’s College Football Playoff, which just so happens to be exactly what Paul Finebaum had done earlier that day.
Anyone who is throwing shade at or trying to take cheap shots at Florida State for being left out of the College Football Playoff last year must be out of touch with reality. FSU wasn’t a team that was kept out because they lost a game down the stretch. They are a team that were… pic.twitter.com/srmP9mtz0J
— Robert Griffin III (@RGIII) August 14, 2024
ESPN’s Paul Finebaum believes #FSU will finish the 2024 season unranked.
“First of all they have no business being in the top 10.”
“I think they used up too many tears crying about not getting in the playoffs. That may slow them down a little bit this year.” #Noles pic.twitter.com/K2Unq9mf0t
— Logan B. Robinson (@LogansTwitty) August 13, 2024
Now is this just a coincidence? Probably. But I stopped believing in coincidences a long time ago. RGIII has been a pretty popular figure at ESPN and now he’s out 36 hours after attacking one of the top college football personalities at the company? That’s a hell of a coincidence if you ask me.
Although I guess if you want to go down that road, this news does come shortly after Griffin’s now infamous croissant photo, too. Maybe it was a confluence of unfortunate events.
It’s always Croissant O’Clock in Paris 🤙🏾 pic.twitter.com/nijeFhc2Jx
— Robert Griffin III (@RGIII) August 9, 2024
I’d imagine RGIII has another job in very short order at another network where he can take as many shots at Finebaum and eat as many comically large croissants as he desires.
And for what it’s worth, Finebaum is absolutely right about FSU being the most likely team in the preseason Top 10 to finish the season unranked. But it also should have been in the Playoff last season.
