Bissinger reflects on tirade

Our friends at The Big Lead did an excellent follow-up interview with Buzz Bissinger just days after the Pulitzer Prize-winning author ripped sports blogs and went off on fellow guest Will Leitch in on an episode of HBO's "Costas Now."

Bissinger, who during the televised forum on sports media said blogs "are the dumbing down of society" and told Deadspin.com founder Leitch he was "full of shit," was admirably contrite in his chat with TBL, saying that while he continues to believe his points are valid, the passion of his convictions got the best of him.

"The more I thought about my performance, the initial glow of 'telling it like it is' turned more and more into the reality of someone who had truly embarrassed himself and subsumed the very points he was trying to make," Bissinger said. "I believe in what I said (although the emails I received have also directed me to some excellent information-based sports blogs I was not aware of). But I made a terrible mistake in the manner in which I said it.

"I am a man of passion and my passion truly got the better of me. I should have considerably toned it down, in particular in terms of my treatment of Will Leitch. Without going into details, I have taken steps to remedy that."

You can read the complete interview here.