Super-Blogger Sando Moves to ESPN.com

Seahawks fans lost a great resource today, as ESPN has snapped up the Tacoma News-Tribune's Mike Sando, just as they snapped up Sando's predecessor, John Clayton.

Sando's Seahawks Insider won best media-affiliated sports blog two years in a row. Sando provided more information than any sane person should be able to digest, like sortable rosters in Excel, audio of interviews in mp3s, analysis of plays and drops and pretty much everything.

He kept the blog going all offseason, a stark contrast to the Seattle Times, which this week announced that their Seahawks blog is "on hiatus." Sando never took a hiatus, and in his goodbye post, he lauds the commitment his bosses have to the Hawks beat and, by extension, to Seahawks fans:

Thanks also to The News Tribune for maintaining the level of commitment to this beat that my predecessor and new ESPN.com teammate, John Clayton, insisted upon from 1986 until my hiring in May 1998. Not every news organization sends its NFL beat reporter to the scouting combine, league meetings, conference title games and Super Bowls, particularly in this age of cutbacks. Organizations unwilling to make that level of commitment are not serious about their coverage. They have to fake it. The News Tribune does not. Executive editor Dave Zeeck, sports editor Dale Phelps and Web editor Mark Briggs assure me that their commitment to this beat -- and to this blog -- is unwavering. They've proven it year after year and it's great having them on record saying that commitment will continue.

Huzzah to Sando and Huzzah to the News Tribune.