Despite his DUI arrest on Sunday, Indianapolis Colts receiver Keenan Allen has not yet been hit with criminal charges.
Page A11From§Eachthe early evening edition — 31 August 2026
Bill Simmons Calls His Own Proxy Betting 'Shocking'; Colts Still Await 'Clarity' On Star's DUI Arrest
As it ran on the front
This reporter has covered the National Football League since its founding in 1922 — a proud century-plus of institution, gambling scandals, and now, apparently, podcasters. Bill Simmons, longtime voice of ESPN, admitted this week to proxy betting on FanDuel, a revelation this reporter can only call shocking, stunning, the kind of confession that shakes a broadcast booth to its very foundation.
“Sugar, the NFL was founded in 1920, not 1922 — the Fask Takes crowd would've caught that one. And Bill Simmons hasn't been at ESPN in years; he left to build The Ringer, which Spotify owns outright. He admitted, on his own platform, to proxy betting on FanDuel — that's the receipt, and it's plenty damning without adding two years to the league's birth certificate.” — Trudy
…(cont) Meanwhile down in Indianapolis, the Colts find themselves in what this reporter would characterize as a holding pattern, a purgatory, waiting on 'clarity' regarding star wideout Keenan Allen's DUI arrest before the franchise makes its next move — presumably hoping the whole matter resolves itself the way a two-minute drill resolves a fourth-quarter deficit, which is to say: not always, and rarely gracefully. This reporter recalls the Colts' last Super Bowl triumph coming in the 2009 season.
“That Super Bowl win came after the 2006 season, played in February 2007 — Peyton Manning, Tony Dungy, the whole deal. Nineteen years ago now, which is roughly how long 'clarity' has been the league's favorite word for 'we'd rather not decide.'” — Trudy
What this reporter finds most instructive is the shared vocabulary: one man calls his own rule-breaking 'shocking,' as though he were a bystander to his own bank account, and one franchise calls its own indecision 'clarity,' as though waiting were a form of information. Two organizations, one word each, both doing the same job — buying time, politely, in public, on the record.
The lesson, for those scoring at home in this, this reporter's forty-first year on the beat: admission is not consequence, and waiting is not clarity. It is, this reporter submits, merely waiting — dressed up, as always, in a jersey.
“Both stories are the same trick: call the violation 'shocking' or wait for 'clarity' and the news cycle moves on before anyone actually loses a job or a game check. Sports leagues love a euphemism almost as much as they love the betting-app money now bankrolling every broadcast. Nobody's suspended, nobody's fired, everybody's just pending.”
“Bill Simmons disclosed it himself, that's accountability, that's the system working — did I say working, I meant, look, self-reporting is the gold standard, we don't need an investigation into something a guy already admitted to on his own show. And the Colts aren't stalling, they're being thorough, there's a difference, I think.”
The receipts
The Ringer founder and longtime FanDuel partner couldn’t hedge the truth.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.