Rob Parker in Chicagoan is "Jay Mariotti"

Hmm...maybe T.O. was joking last week when he berated Ed Werder.

Right, ESPN? RIGHT??


They're already trying to downplay this jackasses' behavior because he's an "ESPN contributor".

great job rob. so what if he asks those questions? marinellis team is terrible i hope they got 0 and 16. its fuckin pro football.

One thing for certain. Both of them will be out after this season.

Rob Parker is a moron.....worthless commentary....as is First Take

That question has likely been haunting Marinelli for awhile now. Why, oh why, didn't my daughter marry Monte Kiffin!!!

As long as I have been aware of that jackass Parker, he has been a whiny squealing annoying douchebag who pulls race card shit as the basis for every argument his mind comes up with.

ESPN sure does have high standards, ethical ones, too!

I was listening to the Lions' postgame show, and they mentioned that Parker told them he was thinking of asking that particular question at the press conference.

i love the race card. every black person should play it. fuck marinelli and his garbage team. why should we feel sorry for him? hes garbage and his team is garbage. hes is 10-37 as a coach. he should be gone anyway. and rob is a reporter so why the fuck does it matter what he asks?

I fail to see the "humor" in that. Really.

Marinelli pretty much took responsibility for everything that has gone on and then this bozo drills him with that question.

Here's hoping that the Lions can beat Green Bay next week. There's never any fun in seeing professional athletes with pride going winless.

Stay classy, Rob Parker.

You stay classy as well, Anon @ 11:57.

"and rob is a reporter so why the fuck does it matter what he asks?"

Yeah, that whole argument coming from the Wilbon's and Korny's of the world about the integrity of sportswriting is pretty much a big fucking joke anyway...

It is humorous when an idiot like Parker, who has never played a sport in his life, tries to comment about anything involving sports. He has never been able to keep a job because of his mouth and that is why he loves to try to get other people fired. The Lion's coaches deserve to be fired but I hope Parker gets silenced again also. He would never challenge a black coach that way.Go back to NY Rob. Oh that's right, you failed there also.

That was pathetic and classes. He was obviously trying to bait Marinelli into going off the handle. I can't stand Parker and I hope he gets fired.

I'm sure ESPN will sweep this under the rug and act like nothing happened.

Rob Parker is a hack and with the recent newpappers cut, I wouldn't be suprised if he is gone by sometime next year.

Wait, so... we have this whole blog dedicated to announcers saying stupid and offensive things during a broadcast, however, if a reporter asks a hilarious yet offensive question during a press conference it's entirely not OK and the scope of this entire site changes as a result?

I don't buy into the double standard you are trying to present here for an instant.

"Rob Parker in Chicagoan is "Jay Mariotti"

Even Mariotti wouldn't be that much of a douchebag.

hahaha i love watching that, how do you see it as being a douchebag? i think its hilarious

i think that question is hilarious.
lighten up, the team is 0-15, why even have press conferences at this point??

There was no humor in it, he was just being obnoxious.

But that seems to pass for humor nowadays, at any rate. The dumbing down of the US continues.

Rob Parker was always annoying whenever I saw him on First Take, not just by what he would say, but how annoying his voice sounds. This guy was part of the reason I stopped watching First Take - dumb columnists talking about topics that may not be knowledgeable about at all. People like Rob Parker, Jemele Hill, Skip Bayless, Stephen A. Smith, Two Live Stews, etc. talking about sports made me feel stupid when watching it.

As for this situation, what makes what Parker said so terrible was the fact that he had been badgering Marinelli about the son-in-law leading up to the rude comment. Parker can't say that it was meant to be a joke because of the previous 2 minutes of questions he was asking.

Who cares they are grown men its professional football. Marinelli is making millions to not win a game, i could pull that off. Good god i wonder how marinelli would handle questions like that every day if he was coachin in NYC.

This is why the US is in the situation it is in. People are all upset over a professional sports coach being harassed when his staff are not getting the job done. Kinda like a bank not knowing the earnings of the people they are loaning money to to buy a home.

If any regular Joe or Jane can't do their job, or their CEO leads them into a mess like we have now, the CEO rides his jet off into the sunset and Jane and Joe gets laid off or fired for not doing the work, and then they wonder how they are going to pay the rent.

Thank God Ford is not asking for a bailout, who knows how much of it would go to the Lions!

The thing I hate most about Rob Parker is how insulting he is to viewers when expecting them to believe his question was all in good fun... a way to lighten up a gloomy day. Not only are we supposed to believe this garbage, but also that Marinelli was completely ok with it. His tone was not friendly or joking and Marinelli was certainly NOT ok with it, and anyone that has a daughter would understand why. Parker should have kept his non-apology to himself, with everything he says he just continues to insult, and is simply too stupid to understand that most of us are smart enough to see his spin as utter bs.