BUCHANAN AWOL FROM ESPN

Former NFL cornerback Ray Buchanan, whose post-football work includes periodic television appearances on ESPN2’s First Take, hasn’t been seen or heard from this week by the folks in Bristol. We received word via a media source of Buchanan’s absence, and so we contacted ESPN for confirmation. Said ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz of Buchanan: “He missed his scheduled appearances. We have attempted to contact him but we have not heard back.” It’s not currently known whether Buchanan’s absence has any connection to allegations that he wrote bad checks in Nevada. Buchanan was arrested on those charges in 2007. Later that year, he became a staunch defender of former Falcons teammate Michael Vick. And, ironically, a pissing match erupted between Buchanan and Chris Landry (you might have heard of him) regarding whether and to what extent Buchanan acknowledged to Landry that Vick had engaged in dogfighting. Said Landry, in May 2007: "[Buchanan] tells me that Michael has been into this dog fighting for so long that . . . he not only knew about, he is behind all of it, he’s paying for all of it. . . . Apparently, he’s into it big time.” Buchanan denied it, Landry stood by it, and we eventually concluded that Buchanan was lying. Our series of stories is right here -- and it was a fascinating read, in large part because we’d completely forgotten about the incident until we were doing the mental gymnastics regarding the Buchanan/Vick connection.