Ben Frederickson: Costas as an outsider should scare the NFL

BC-FBN-FREDERICKSON-COLUMN:SL — sports (600 words)

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If you had any remaining reasons to doubt the extent of the NFL’s effort to smother any and all truth-tellers it can exert its significant influence upon, please read this fascinating ESPN Outside the Lines piece about NFL business partner NBC’s not-so-subtle blocking of broadcasting legend Bob Costas.

The Reader’s Digest version is that NBC decided it could not allow Costas, who had become increasingly outspoken about that whole concussion problem, to continue to inject his “opinions” into the NBC broadcasts of NFL games.

So, NBC pulled Costas from the Super Bowl, a significant milestone in his split with the network altogether.

Now...