As athletes have more and more avenues for speaking to the world on their own terms, it’s important to remember that there are longstanding means of communication that have yet to be dismantled by their employers.
Years ago, the NFL decided that the interests of the business compelled a certain amount of transparency from players. The rule is, and for decades has been, that players must be available to reporters: (1) after each game; and (2) once during the week before each game, either at a podium or in the locker room.
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Liberties routinely are taken, without incident. Players sometimes quickly leave the locker room without speaking. Sometimes, it becomes a big deal. Marshawn Lynch, for example, was fined repeatedly for not complying with the contractual obligation to speak to the media. Eventually, he opted to show up and to say, repeatedly, “I’m just here so I won’t be fined.”
Far more often, reporters accept a short-term diss in order to not create longer-lasting friction. This year, the Giants refused on multiple occasions to make Jaxson Dart or Jameis Winston available to reporters, in direct defiance of the NFL’s rules. The Cardinals shielded quarterback Kyler Murray from reporters, for weeks. Most recently, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce hasn’t been talking to reporters. (He recently took a break from the low-key boycott.)
The only exception to the rule requiring media availablility applies to players in the concussion protocol.
In New York, quarterback Justin Fields remains subject to the league’s media requirements, even though he has been benched. Brian Costello of the New York Post tweeted this on Friday: “Approached Justin Fields at his locker. He said he was going to get a massage and did not have time to talk. I asked his reaction to move. ‘There’s no reaction. That’s life. Shit happens.'”
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Jets running back Breece Hall took issue with Costello’s post. “Pathetic move by you tbh,” Hall tweeted. “Wish some of yall would grow up and stop acting like little kids nagging somebody till they get mad lol.”
Hall is missing the point. The NFL, which employs Hall and every other player, has mandated all players will be available. Asking Fields during an open locker-room availability for his reaction to being benched isn’t “nagging.” It’s called “reporters doing their job.”
That’s what the reporters are paid to do. The NFL requires the players to be available, and the various publications with credentials to cover each team require their reporters to harness that availability for content that, as to the NFL and its teams, becomes free publicity for the product that pro football is selling.
It’s the business calculation the NFL has made. There’s less of a need to advertise the game when multiple media outlets will advertise the game in the best way possible — not as an ad but as the stuff that the media outlets are selling to their audiences.
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Players may not like it, but that’s part of the job. It’s no different from showing up for meetings, practices, games. Media availability is one of the obligations the players endure in return for the compensation they receive.
It shouldn’t be controversial. And it shouldn’t surprise anyone. Costello was doing his job in asking the question. Fields was doing his job in answering it. He could have said, “I’m just here so I won’t be fined.” He could have said anything. He opted to say, “There’s no reaction. That’s life. Shit happens.”
If you haven’t noticed, we’re one of the few media outlets that tries to get the audience to understand and respect the various issues and challenges players face, especially when the 32 teams view them as interchangeable parts in a football machine that has been running long before they arrived, and that will keep running long after they’re gone.
Unless and until the league decides it’s no longer useful to the broader business to require players to be available to the media twice per week, standing before reporters is no different than lining up against an opponent. It’s part of the job. It’s the business they’ve chosen.