Rumors of the demise of ESPN’s fledgling mid-morning gabfest, Cold Pizza, have persisted for months, and here’s another reason to believe the show’s in trouble: Woody Paige is apparently going to return to writing his column for the Denver Post, so say the powers that be at sportsjournalists.com.

The move reeks of a man seeking an exit strategy before his position is eliminated, doesn’t it? Who knew Woody was so smart? Remember, nearly 10 months ago, Pagie wrote his final piece for the Post, probably with the idea that he’d be at ESPN forever.

We actually touched on this subject briefly in our end of the Boo-Yah era piece last month – ESPN is moving away from the ranting and raving shticky garbage that has turned the network from a loved entity to a loathed one.

You don’t need a Master’s from Harvard to connect the dots here – the lone champion of Cold Pizza was former honcho Mark Shapiro, and his replacement, John Skipper, doesn’t appear enamored with the show. Witness the time slot shift from early-morning to the brunch hour. That’s akin to getting your sitcom moved from a coveted mid-week evening slot to the Friday Night graveyard. And more recently, we brought you the news that Paige’s partner in crime, Skip Bayless, was told his services were no longer needed at ESPN.com’s Page 2. Adding all of these little pieces together leads us to believe the show may not make it through Winter.

We actually don’t mind Cold Pizza. We treat it like we do Mike & Mike – it’s on mute in the background while we listen to Howard Stern and blog. We look up occasionally to check the scroll in case news is breaking.

So what’s the next move in the Boo-Yah cleansing? When the Jason Whitlock-Scoop Jackson tete-a-tete reached critical mass two weeks ago, our guess was that Scoop was going to quit. Whitlock boxed Scoop into a corner and left him no choice: he had to clean up his language. After doing so in his “why can’t we be friends” column last week, the message became clear: Scoop is going to have to change his writing style to remain at the network.

And therein lies the question: Will Scoop now feel he’s “selling out” by writing in a different style? Will he have to jump ship to get his credibility back from his core readers?

Woody Paige Back to Denver Post (Sportsjournalists.com)
EARLIER: More Changes at ESPN Signify the End of the Boo-yah Era
EARLIER: Have we seen the last of Skip Bayless at ESPN.com’s Page 2