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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

So very much to be said for the art of saying nothing

By: Doug Brown

Posted: 07/7/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

You can learn all the right moves so to speak, and drill the fundamentals at your position until your craft on the gridiron is a thing of beauty and precision. Unfortunately, nobody drills professional athletes on the skills required at the podium where you have to be just as precise and even more calculating when it comes to what you say off of the field.

I was lucky. I learned about missteps and potential pitfalls interacting with the media my first year in professional football in Buffalo in 1997 courtesy of an unintentional teacher.

Back then, Todd Collins was the quarterback of the team, the year after Bills legend Jim Kelly had retired, and the team was in Massachusetts in Week 6 playing the Drew Bledsoe-led New England Patriots.

After getting sacked by Tedy Bruschi early in the game, Collins left the field and the No. 2 quarterback, Billy Joe Hobart, entered the game. It was his first appearance for the Bills since they had traded their third-round pick in the 1997 draft to the Raiders to address their lack of depth at quarterback.

The first time Hobart threw a pass in relief of Collins it was intercepted. Not much later in the game he was picked off again and the Patriots easily handled the Bills 33-6.

Though Hobart had obviously not played well, it was his first start with the Bills in a new offence, and as bad as things had gone for him, the football club had every intention of giving him another chance to get a handle on things -- that is until he opened his mouth in an interview after the game.

It was an innocent enough question, one that any player could expect after a couple of large blunders that contributed to the team losing that day. Billy was asked why he was so unsuccessful stepping in for Collins and leading the offence. He told the press that it didn't have anything to do with his quarterbacking abilities, he just hadn't properly prepared to play because he didn't think he was going to see any time -- and he didn't know all the plays in the offensive playbook.

Unimpressed

Needless to say, Bills management was relatively unimpressed that they were paying their No. 2 pivot over $1 million a season and he hadn't found the time to adequately familiarize himself with the tools of his trade.

They also probably weren't very impressed by the fact that the man they had traded their third-round draft pick for wasn't even smart enough to realize that what he was saying would leave them with no choice but to release him outright only days later.

You needn't cover a football team for 10 years to realize that being astute on the field of play isn't necessarily matched by equal adeptness off of it. To boot, after games, players are exhausted, the dementia and concussions are in full swing and the emotion of the day has not yet been sapped from our bodies. We seldom realize in a spur of the moment interview, that win or lose or draw, when we stand in front of that microphone we are always on the precipice of losing our jobs.

Everybody likes getting their picture in the paper, and a lot of players love being one of the voices of the team or the "go to guy" the media seeks out when they want a sumptuous quote.

But even the most veteran and practiced acts in front of the scribes say things they wished they hadn't after a game, just like last season when Ed Tait and yours truly got a little too descriptive and creative trying to describe an "ugly" win after a game in Hamilton.

There is nothing wrong with being open and honest with the media and trying to give them something a little off centre to make their stories less mundane, but only to a point.

When a player drops his guard, is overrun with emotion, or isn't on point enough to realize what he is saying is about to cost him and his family their livelihood -- when he could have just said he doesn't wish to comment -- there is something awfully one-sided and unforgiving about that seemingly innocuous interview.

Doug Brown, always a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 7, 2009 B9

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