Dunno how I missed this earlier in the week, but it’s hilariously bad. Thanks to reader Chris for sending it over.

At Sports Illustrated, Evan Massey wrote a story titled “Proposed Trade Would Send New York Jets Star to Panthers.” The subtitle reads “A new proposed trade would send New York Jets pass-rusher Josh Sweat to the Carolina Panthers.”

As you know, Josh Sweat does not play for the New York Jets. He plays for the Philadelphia Eagles. This is an aggregation of a July 26th Alex Ballentine story at Bleacher Report that lists out one trade each NFL team should consider before the beginning of the season. Ballentine creates a scenario in which the Eagles move Sweat to Carolina because they’ve got Bryce Huff and Nolan Smith on the edges. It’s just a standard hypothetical listicle.

Here’s how Massey presented it:

In a new Bleacher Report article, Alex Ballentine suggested a trade that would send a pass-rusher out of New York. However, that pass-rusher was not (Haason) Reddick. Instead, he suggested a move that would send Josh Sweat out of town to the Carolina Panthers.

Ballentine proposed a trade that would send Sweat to the Panthers in exchange for a 2025 second-round pick and pass-rusher K’Lavon Chaisson.

Of course, this move would mean that the Jets have found a way to work things out with Reddick. They wouldn’t trade Sweat if Reddick wasn’t back onboard and ready to go for the 2024 season.

Good logic! The Jets should only trade Josh Sweat if they feel confident that Haason Reddick will play this year.


Most media outlets aggregate to some extent. People make mistakes, errors are published, blah blah etc. I’ve put some really dumb shit on this site before, but we usually catch it pretty quickly and make the appropriate corrections. This story has been up for 48 hours and identifies Josh Sweat as a New York Jet. Does Sports Illustrated even have editors these days? Are they still using the A.I.- created fake writers? Is “Evan Massey” a real human being or a ChatGPT concoction? It’s the only plausible explanation. The robots screwed up.