Charissa Thompson's comments on made-up sideline reports draws outrage from industry professionals

Crissy Froyd

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Charissa Thompson's comments on made-up sideline reports draws outrage from industry professionals image

Fox Sports and NFL on Prime host Charissa Thompson has come under fire by several sideline reporters and individuals in the sports journalism industry for the comments she made on the "Pardon My Take" podcast regarding making up coaches' comments when she was a sideline reporter. 

“I’ve said this before,” Thompson said. “I haven’t been fired for saying it, but I’ll say it again. I would make up the report sometimes, because A, the coach wouldn’t come out at halftime, or it was too late and I didn’t want to screw up the report. So I was like, ‘I’m just gonna make this up.’

“Because first of all, no coach is gonna get mad if I say, ‘Hey, we need to stop hurting ourselves, we need to be better on third down, we need to stop turning the ball over and do a better job of getting off the field.’ They’re not gonna correct me on that. So I’m like, it’s fine, I’ll just make up the report," Thompson continued.

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In regard to the mention that she had said this publicly before, she was drawing a reference to a conversation that took place between herself and Erin Andrews on their podcast, "Calm Down with Erin and Charissa."

The way she went about phrasing this, though, caused several sideline reporters at both the national and local levels to feel disrespected as it cast an unfair shadow on all who roam the sidelines professionally.

Thompson has since taken to Instagram to make a statement on the reports on Friday, apologizing for her poor choice of words:

Crissy Froyd

Crissy Froyd Photo

Crissy Froyd is a content producer at The Sporting News covering college football, the NFL and other sports. A graduate of LSU in 2021, she has nine years' experience writing about football across all levels, specializing in quarterback analysis and the NFL Draft. Her work previously appeared in USA Today, Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports, among other outlets.