The NFL’s new policy of requiring head coaches to exchange in-game pleasantries with network sideline reporters isn’t doing much to enhance the quality of the broadcasts, as the coerced interviews thus far have been a masterclass in the art of saying nothing.
Speaking to Fox’s Pam Oliver as the second half of the Falcon’s Week 1 loss to the Steelers was about to get underway, Atlanta coach Raheem Morris had this to say about getting burned on a deep pass to George Pickens: “We called a good play, they called a good play. They won that battle; it is what it is.”
Morris’ deployment of sports’ pet tautology may not have attained the meaningless splendor of Simeon Rice’s Yoda-esque spin: “It is what it is, and sometimes it is what it isn’t. But we are where we are.” Still, give the coach credit for keeping his business under wraps. Here’s chatterbox Zac Taylor spilling the beans to CBS’ Tracy Wolfson as the Bengals ran out on the field at Arrowhead last Sunday: “Well, we’ve gotta finish with touchdowns on offense. We’ve gotta finish in the end zone, get some more turnovers.”
If it’s rare to see such naked candor on display during a national TV broadcast—nearly 28 million fans were watching as Taylor let the kitten out of the satchel—the Lions’ Dan Campbell was practically logorrheic during his 30-second encounter with NBC’s Melissa Stark. The 48-year-old former tight end, who looks like he was generated by an AI prompt for “iron-jawed football coach,” all but handed his playbook over to Stark as she grilled him during the Sept. 8 Sunday Night Football opener.
“I think we’re doing some pretty good things here,” Campbell enthused as his team looked to build on its 10-3 lead over the Rams. “The, you know, to be able to, to there at the end, to do what we were able to do and get an interception is huge, man. We just can’t give ‘em any cheap ones, man. No more penalties that cost us. It should never come down to that.” (Like most jocks who were born after the Ford administration, Campbell uses “man” as an all-purpose interjection, regardless of who he’s speaking to.)
SNF’s Mike Tirico chuckled as Stark threw it back to the booth, and his reaction went a long way toward explaining what the NFL is probably going for here with its flash-interview mandate. “I don’t know why I always laugh when he talks, Cris, but when we did our meeting with him, it was just fun,” Tirico told wingman Cris Collinsworth. “It’s just ‘real, man’ and all that stuff.”
Unfortunately, Campbell’s an outlier, and his gruff exuberance can power him through even the most rigorously tossed word salad. Other NFL coaches aren’t designed to do anything other than win and scowl; even the TV-ready Andy Reid, who’s a real cut-up in his State Farm commercials, has mailed it in with his sideline interlocutors. To be fair, Reid warned us all that he wasn’t going to put in a lot of effort once the new policy went into place.
“I’m sure I’m not going to tickle anybody’s fancy there, with these interviews,” Reid said last month, when asked about the mandatory in-game Q&As. “Listen, I’ve got to do it—I’m going to do it. I’m an NFL team guy, so I’m going to do it, but don’t expect much.”
Reid’s forthright response echoed Marshawn Lynch’s mantra from his memorable turn at a Super Bowl XLIX media scrum. For approximately five minutes and 27 seconds, Beast Mode answered every question put to him in Glendale with the phrase, “I’m here so I won’t get fined.” In doing so, Lynch—who has since revealed that the NFL taxed him upwards of $1.2 million for his refusal to engage with the press—obeyed the letter of the law while going all Father Merrin on the spirit of the thing.
The revelation about the league’s We Have Ways of Making You Talk initiative was unearthed this summer by Mike Florio, who stumbled across the nugget as he combed through the 2,506-page Sunday Ticket trial transcript. “This year, we have a new policy going into effect where all of the clubs are going to have to make a head coach available live for an interview during the game,” said Cathy Yancy, the NFL’s VP of broadcasting rights, policies and compliance, during her testimony in the case. “Each team has to provide a head coach; one in the first half, one in the second half. And that’s for all teams, and it’s available for all TV partners.”
Yancy went on to say that the sideline interviews would prove to be “good for the broadcast, [and] good for the fans.” Thus, the practice boils down to a form of overreaching fan service; as Yancy said, “Fans want to be closer to the game, they want to get to know the players and the coaches. It’s very important that they kind of have that relationship.”
Setting aside the clumsy inference—after all, nobody asked for this—we’ve already seen what fans can expect when an NFL coach is asked to momentarily divert his attention from the task at hand. Anyone who’s seen the clip of Mike Tomlin sharing a moment with an enthusiastic Steelers fan knows that you’ve gotta be smarter about picking your moments on gameday.
Fan, as Tomlin saunters through the bowels of Ketchup Stadium:
“Coach Tomlin! Let’s go for the win, man!”
Tomlin:
“Man, I’m f**kin’ working!”
America:
“LOL.”
While Tomlin’s not about to start dropping F-bombs on the airwaves, the vehemence of his response to a momentary disruption of concentration should serve as a reminder that sideline reporters perform a largely thankless job. As a class, NFL coaches rank avoidable interruptions right up there with a visit to an oral surgeon with shaky hands, and every non-response they dredge up from the cliché factory is a moment lost to the guy on the other side of the field. Thus, the interactions we’re all allegedly clamoring for would seem to come at a great cost. Nothing’s being said, but it’s a loud kind of nothing, the sort of nothing that visibly diminishes the speaker in the telling.
If the NFL’s new media wrinkle doesn’t do much to enhance the in-game experience, just be grateful that nobody’s tried to monetize these 30 seconds of undead air. As the escalators in the NFL rights deals continue to inflate the annual costs of broadcasting the games, the network partners are going to be looking for new ways to squeeze some more dollars out of the enterprise.
Give it another year and Flo from Progressive will be catching up with a seething, purple-faced Brian Daboll moments after Daniel Jones figures out a new way to blaspheme the Football Gods.
At the risk of manifesting such a vision by verbalizing it, we’re probably not all that far from the moment where the Hamburglar mutters “robble, robble” as he sticks a mic in a bemused John Harbaugh’s face. When the burger klepto nonsensically throws it back to the booth, Grimace is going to be up there chilling with Chris Myers and Mark Schlereth. And just so there’s no misunderstanding: When this comes to pass, I’m going to want my cut of the action.
