[DanT]

Originally Posted by crazycoffey

Can’t read it, not starting a free trial to read it either. What’s the new info that’s being shared about this boring story

The writer, Jayson Jenks, was able to get Jeff Pearlman's source for the original story, a Jennifer Wulff, to provide a little bit more detail about how the screw-up happened,

Originally Posted by Excerpt from Jayson Jenks' piece in the Athletic

Best as Wulff can remember, all the People staffers and correspondents were on a conference call when someone, somewhere blurted out, “The Kansas City quarterback is really hot.” It was eventually decided that, yes, the Kansas City quarterback would be that year’s Sexiest Athlete Alive.

“Somehow,” she said, laughing more now, “the photos came back and the interview came back,” (even more laughter), “and we were like, ‘What the hell? This is not …'” (a cascade of laughs).

According to Wulff, the photo editors called in the staff to look at the pictures that would run in the magazine, and it didn’t take long for everyone in the room to realize that something had gone wrong. “One of the editors said, ‘This is the guy?’ Then we were looking it up and figured out that it was the other quarterback.”

As in Gannon, Grbac’s backup.

“And then it was too late,” Wulff said. “They felt so bad. We couldn’t cancel it at that point. It would be so mean.”