NFL censors Bradley Cooper interview over gambling movie

Actor Bradley Cooper watches a Philadelphia Eagles practice Nov. 14.(Photo: David Maialetti, AP)

3:42PM EST November 26. 2012 –

The NFL pulled an NFL Network segment featuring actor Bradley Cooper because his new film contains references to NFL gambling.

From The New York Post^[1] (via MMQB^[2]):

The star of the Weinstein Company’s Silver Linings Playbook, with Jennifer Lawrence, was to headline (Friday’s) Rich Eisen Thanksgiving Special with co-star Chris Tucker. But after the segment was approved, and taped, the net was abruptly told on Wednesday by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s office to scrap it.

The reason? That Robert De Niro’s character in the film is a part-time bookie. The decision has left host Eisen and his team scrambling harder than Mark Sanchez to re-edit the show. An NFL Media rep confirmed, “The segment was pulled because the movie included content related to gambling on NFL games.” …

Until (Wednesday), the segment was promoted online as the pigskin special’s top interview, with a picture of a smiling Cooper, Tucker and Eisen. It was replaced on Thanksgiving by a picture of Eisen and another guest, John Slattery.

John Slattery? The guy who dropped acid in Mad Men? Had weird sexual fetishes in Sex and the City? And stole Carol Vessey from Ed in Ed? The NFL wants to be in business with a kinky, deviant, drug-using homewrecker? Won’t somebody please think of the children! The league trying to disassociate itself from gambling by pulling an interview is like Phish asking McGruff the Crime Dog to stand outside the band’s concerts. It’s an empty gesture by the league.

As Peter King mentions in MMQB, pulling the segment only draws more attention to it. No one was watching NFL Network on the Friday night after Thanksgiving. I watch the network a lot and had no idea Cooper and Tucker were going to be on it.

The hypocrisy of the league on issues like there is nothing new. Fantasy football, itself a mild form of gambling, is so mainstream that the league’s network runs tickers devoted to fantasy scores. Yet point spreads are widely discussed everywhere except during coverage of games. Sitting down with Cooper brings no more attention to NFL gambling than it does to getting a hangover in Vegas and then doing it again, much less humorously, in Thailand. He’s an actor. It’s a fictional movie. Most people get that.