For those of you who've not seen it, Boston Globe columnist and NFL guru Will McDonough passed away last night. Fittingly, he died watching Sports Center, which if you're a sports journalist is probably the way to go.

Not many details at this point, but something cardiac is suspected given his troubles in that area over the past few years.

If you lived in New England for any significant stretch of time, McDonough was the voice for NFL coverage. He covered the league for almost four decades, including every Super Bowl. You didn't always agree with McDonough on opinion, but he was perhaps the most well-connected NFL reporter in the world. That parlayed itself into regular TV appearances on pre-game shows as well, adding a distinctive voice to coverage.

In recent years that voice was heard less, as McDonough didn't really fit into the new style pre-game show, with their mock jocularity, increasing X-Gen focus, and so on. The problem was the change in generations, almost literally so; his son Sean you probably know from any number of things that he covers as a play-by-play man, from the Red Sox to college sports, golf, tennis, hockey, the Olympics, soccer, and yes, even some NFL.

So there you have it. One more chink in the wall that, however thinly, separates substance from style in sports journalism.