You love the NFL, but does the NFL love you?
How would their lives be different if (from left) Jerry Angelo, Jay Cutler and Lovie Smith revealed themselves one-on-one to inquiring newshounds? (image via Getty Images).
There’s a darn good reason why you don’t see pro football written up much in this site.
The lords of the “No Fun League” don’t want the end results of one-on-one relationships with their athletes posted, published or broadcast anywhere. One on one is my style, and I couldn’t bring you anything unique that isn’t offered elsewhere with the tightly-choreographed access the NFL provides for its newsmakers. The majority of sound bites and interviews come out of what is called internally in the media as a “pig fuck,” with mic jockeys and video cameras being wielded like battering rams all crowding around an interview subject.
The most extreme example, of course, was the Bears’ decision to prevent Jay Cutler, Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo from talking on camera to NBC’s Bob Costas for the network’s Sunday Night Football package. The Bears knew all too well that old-pro Costas wasn’t going to lob softballs at the trio, particularly the under-fire Cutler, who these days doesn’t meet an opposing defensive back in the red zone he doesn’t like.
Thus Cutler still remains largely a mystery man, thanks to the typical access policies in which the quarterback is available only for a weekly (Wednesday) group-interview session and then a post-game press conference. That’s it. No way of getting to know the Hoosier flinger in a lower-key manner. If Cutler has any “A” material, you’re not going to hear it. Like other athletes whose accessibility to the media, and in turn the public, is carefully rationed, he won’t say anything controversial or incisive to a large group. How he thinks and feels, what he’s really like, why he does what he does, is off-limits.
Ditto with the head coach. Smith is as bland as can be, a Gene Michael of the pigskin set. His access is similarly limited to group interviews at specific times. But I wonder if Smith could be pulled aside one-on-one, he’d open up or be a little more candid without the stage-fright mentality of making a speech to a crowd?
Baseball is hardly perfect in contrast. But it still affords a hard-working and enterprising reporter the chance to pull players, the manager and general manager aside for one-on-one sessions in which you can get the story behind the story.
In the NBA, only a 45-minute locker-r00m access window exists pre-game. Yet if that league followed the NFL standard, a star like Derrick Rose would be available only at specific times in group settings. Recently on this site, I wrote about Rose’s philosophy of patience, expressed in Chinese lettering tattooed on his right arm. I simply approached Rose at his locker an hour before a game. I asked if he had a few minutes and away we went.
Wherever Pete Rozelle is, he must be cringing at the palace-guard mentality his successors as NFL commissioner have mandated. Call me a dinosaur, but give me the good ol’ days of the 1980s with Rozelle in charge and a slew of Super Bowl XX characters in the Bears locker room. And even if a Mike Ditka personally dressed down a questioner in his press conference, Iron Mike’s fiery personality was far more preferable to Bland Lovie.
You could forge friendly relationships with the likes of Dave Duerson and Shaun Gayle, and collect their home numbers. Colorful quotes and Football 101 lessons abounded in the old Halas Hall locker room.
One of my all-time favorite times was the late October 1983 day I “tackled” Walter Payton. Sportscaster Mike Adamle, an old Bears teammate of Sweetness, put in a good word for me and an interview was set up for 3 p.m. on a Tuesday at Payton’s Schaumburg, Ill. restaurant. I showed up at the appointed time, but Payton ran late. He called assistant Tracy Nguyen from his car phone, requesting she keep me entertained. I can’t hold my liquor, but Nguyen plied me with Bloody Marys. Finally, Payton arrived more than three hours late and I rallied from my increasingly woozy state. I grilled Payton for about 90 minutes. As we wrapped up, Payton suggested that I goofed up his day because I kept him in one place for 1 1/2 hours and, of course, his style was to keep moving.
I’ll always have the Eighties, just as Bogie and Bergman always had Paris. Meanwhile, count me out of the frantic press of media bodies around one player or the non-informative group interview sessions with quarterback and head coach.
The NFL wants your undying loyalty. What is it giving in return?
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Football players say such little of importance that it’s a shame to pulp trees for newsprint in the fall. If they only have to speak for a short time once a week, I can now see how that happens. A meth head could keep his shit together for an hour a week if his paycheck depended on it.
Agree in principle, Jim Finn, but with the strict choreography of group interviews and rationed press-conference access to the top NFL newsmakers, we’ll never know if they have something interesting to say. The ‘85 Bears gave you lessons in Football 101. I’m sure the ‘57 Lions were like that. Ooops, that hurts, for you.
In response to another comment. See in context »Are you rubbing my face in the fact that I’m old, or that I’ve never seen a winning Detroit Lions team?
People still love the ‘85 Bears, not just because they won, but because they had so much personality. Samurai, Dent, Hampton, Mongo, Sweetness, McMahon…it was a fascinating soap opera as well as a football tutorial.
The only time we get to see the personalities of the players now is when they get arrested.
In response to another comment. See in context »No, no rubbing your face. I feel sorry for you that the Lions haven’t won since the start of Ike’s second term and the introduction of the Edsel. Detroit has had so little going for it, so a winning football team once a half-century would be a nice pick-me-up.
Oh, we have colorful players, but they’re disciplined by the NFL if they stash cell phones in goalposts. The league is probably happy that most fans have only superficial, office-pool knowledge of teams’ rosters. Otherwise, they’d have to humanize their players a lot more — including the Bears’ quarterback, whose most consistent protection is from the front office.
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I kind of agree with James. Athletes and coaches rely so much on the old shopworn statements that you even see it if you’re covering high school games, so I’m not sure it’s entirely a sports league’s fault. You know, the typical:
•”It just feels really good to help the team win. It’s not me, it’s all the guys around me. I’m just really happy to be with this group of guys.”
• “We just need to go out there and take it one step at a time. We got to focus on the fundamentals.”
• “I’ve just got to thank God. I prayed all last night for us to win, and he must have listened.”
But at the same time, I can kind of understand why athletes and coaches are reserved in their statements. Doing so prevents the subject from attracting undue attention. Remember Dennis Green’s outburst at the post-Monday Night Football game against the Bears from a few years ago? If you actually listen to what he was screaming about, it actually kind of made sense. But because he was screaming and frothing about it, the media lampooned him until the end of the year. Same with Jim “Playoffs?” Mora. Maybe there’s just no premium to being animated?
You’d get more revealing, impactful and non-cliche comments with more one-on-one time, Steve. Problem is, the NFL and individual teams like the Bears don’t allow you to get close to the head coach and quarterback, while the rationed time with all other players is in gang-bang formats. I can tell you I got better material from Lou Piniella getting him aside in the dugout or on the field than when he does his group-interview sessions. He’s less guarded and has less stage fright. The “C” material is put on display in the group sessions while you have a chance at “A material one-on-one.
In response to another comment. See in context »