The Sports Fella Unleashes Another Not-So-Subtle Dig At Rick Reilly

Yesterday revealed the enormous amounts of Bill Simmons-related email sent to Deadspin and, true to form, more Bill Simmons conspiracy theories started rolling in immediately after it was published.

The first one sent in was this:

On the heels of your latest roundup of Simmons rumors, I thought this deserves mention:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/author/bill-simmons/

Bill Simmons, listed as a contributor to The Daily Beast, Tina Brown's online rag. He hasn't written anything of substance yet.. but could this be a backup, should he leave ESPN?

Just a thought.

False. Nice try, though. But then this morning, after Sports Guy Nation fully digested the December 17th version of the BS Report podcast, these started popping up. All [Sic'd]:

after reading the simmons post today ( wednesday) you probably ignore a lot of these emails. But this little nugget is sorta good...its from his podcast (please don't use my name...i'm an anonymous source..hopefully people will yell at you like that guy yelled at werder)

at around the 21 minute mark, collinsworth mentions that owens may have been more pissed that roy williams was making more money than him than any of this whitten stuff, then simmons drops this beauty:

"aaaah yes, as we found out time and time again, in sports, or in any other community, if you bring in another guy and pay him more than the best guy you have, it's gonna be trouble, the guy's not gonna handle it very well."

uuuuuuuhhhhh... what the hell. i love simmons as much as anybody (clearly! i'm listening to his podcast mere hours after it's available!) but is he comparing himself to T.O?? Is he really cocky enough to mention ON A PODCAST that he's the best espn has?? This is a little wierd...unless im reading into it...but I kinda think he's referencing his feud with the rick-ster. give it a listen, lemme know what you guys think.

Another Jab at Reilly—21:10 mark when Collinsworth talks about Roy E getting paid more than TO, Simmons says how in any profession if you bring in a new guy and pay him more than you're best guy there's going to be trouble...Freudian slip or planted slap in the face at management? You be the judge.

Around 21:25 during the BS Report with Chris Colinsworth

Bill Simmons says this: "As we've found out time and time again in sports or in any other community, if you bring in another guy and pay him more then the best guy you have, there's gonna be trouble. Guy's not gonna handle that well."

He was talking about TO and Roy Williams but of course he wasn't!

The "feud" between Reilly and Simmons is well-worn territory and there always appears to be some underlying tension between the two of them. Some of it was overblown and made out to be more than it was, but this one seems deliberate. And sources close to the situation confirm that this particular Simmons conspiracy theory was exactly how the emailers interpreted it. Well done.