ESPN's Chris Mortensen is not well known for getting his stories right. In fact, it's pretty much accepted as fact that anything Mort says or utters should be taken with a grain of salt. I don't think he's reported a factual NFL story since 2001. And this won't help any.

You may remember this weekend that Matt Leinart, uh, how do I put this nicely, sucked something fierce against the Raiders on Saturday.

Mort reported that a team source said Warner would be named the starter on Sunday. Well, Sunday passed, and nothing happened. Now it's Monday, so, uh, what's going on exactly?


Now, perhaps we're being too hard on Mort. Because let's be honest, it sure as hell would appear that Warner should be named the opening day starter. But I keep wondeirng if Mort's "source" was a real source, or just him sitting on the couch and saying "Man, Leinart really sucks. I think the Cards should go with Warner."

Besides, anyone with a journalism background knows you can't base a story off of one source, but Mort does this repeatedly.

Even worse, Mort was ESPN's lead source on the Favre trade, and remember, they had a team of bloodhounds following Favre even when he went to take a dump. But, as late as 4:30 PM on August 6th, he reported that the Bucs were the leading contenders for Brett Favre, being completely wrong. It was Fox's Jay Glazer who broke the story, shortly after midnight on August 7th.

And we all remember last year how Mort reported that Eli Manning would be out for a month with a shoulder injury. Eli and the Giants strongly denied that and Manning wound up not even missing a start.

Seriously, how does this guy still have a job? He's the anti-Jay Glazer. Nothing he reports is ever right. If he worked at any reasonable network or newspaper he'd have been fired forever ago.

Anyway, just remember that when Mort tells you that your quarterback suffered a torn ACL in Sunday's game, you can be 100% sure that he'll be playing next week.

Wisenhunt says no decision yet. [AZ Central]