Report: CBS parting ways with Mike Carey

CBS’s Mike Carey experiment is reportedly over.

The network’s NFL rules analyst, often the target of ridicule by viewers and fans, reportedly won’t be brought back for the 2016 season, according to Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News.

It is characterized as “highly unlikely” that CBS will look to replace him with another former referee, with one possibility being that the network will go directly to NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino on controversial calls for live reaction from the league.

Wherever CBS looks next, Carey simply had to go. The network tried to defend him during the season, but moments like this simply stuck in fans’ minds too much and hurt his credibility. It culminated at the Super Bowl, where Carey was wrong again on the sport’s biggest stage. Even though Carey was right far more often than he was wrong and some of the potshots were unfair, he’d become something of a laughingstock, and it’s probably best for all involved that they go their separate ways.