What Was Jay Glazer Thinking Teasing an NFL Player's Positive Coronavirus Test as a Scoop?

Jay Glazer has reported that Los Angeles Rams center Brian Allen was the first NFL player to test positive for COVID-19. Glazer broke the news on Wednesday's edition of Fox Football Now after what was basically a 24-hour tease. It is good to hear that Allen is making a full recovery, but what was Jay Glazer thinking handling this "nugget" like this?

The public first caught wind that Glazer would be breaking news on Wednesday when he went on Fox Sports Radio and said that he was "breaking big, big news tomorrow night on Fox Football Now. I mean big, national news tomorrow. I'm not kidding around." Seriously, that's what host Jason Smith tweeted.

Our first clue that this was nothing was that it was a tease. No reporter teases an actual scoop. If this were going to be a trade or something interesting, Glazer would have fired it off immediately, lest he get scooped by another reporter. Glazer then woke up, confirmed that it really had nothing to do with football and again told people to tune into Fox Football Now.

Looking at this single tweet, we all should have known. He confirmed it wasn't transnational, which is all anyone would actually care about. Then he went on Fox Football Now and revealed that he was the first reporter to hear about one of the more than 640,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States as of Wednesday.

It's not just that a young, healthy person recovering from this doesn't really register as big news, it's that it was a literal tease. I'm not really trying to criticize FOX for using this to draw viewers. Anyone in any kind of media is in a tough spot right now and we're all doing what we can to get eyeballs. And the fact that Allen is OK and obviously OK'd Glazer telling his story means no one was hurt here except the people who foolishly tuned in to Fox Football Now hoping for a bombshell.

It's just... weird, right? Where do we go from here as sports fans craving sports content? Hopefully we get to a place where any athlete testing positive is a huge story again, but right now, just as we appear to see the curve flatten because most people are doing what they are supposed to be doing, this isn't that big. If another dozen NFL players said they tested positive tomorrow it wouldn't be shocking.

And from the media's perspective, where do we go from here? If this remains the new normal, will we end up in a place where we hear something like, "Another athlete has tested positive for coronavirus and we're going to tell you... right after this break." Let's hope not.