We’re turning our favorite NFL players into cliche-spouting robots. It had to happen because if they say anything remotely interesting it becomes column fodder until the next controversy erupts. We have created a future where the landscape is filled with boring athletes who refuse to give bulletin board material to their opponents or anything of interest to fans, and that is a pretty rotten thing.
Your favorite NFL players are dull because they have to be
Would you rather have a sometimes-controversial player who’s fun to watch or a robot who says all the right things after a game?
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When Robert Griffin III gave a seemingly innocuous press conference after last week's disappointing performance in a loss to the Buccaneers, armchair Skip Baylesses and their leaders -- the real Skip Baylesses and Mike Florios -- tripped all over their imaginary giant swinging nutsacks filled with hollow-pointed opinions to declare that there was a bus, and that Griffin had thrown his entire team under it. They declared him some variation of a diva-ish, self-centered clown fraud who is, quite literally, the worst thing to happen to the quarterback position since Ryan Leaf.
Declaring someone to be self-centered is a convenient way to describe why Griffin hasn’t been able to understand the free safety’s responsibility in his pre-snap reads or why Jim Haslett hasn’t done anything over the last 20 years to merit his current job.
Griffin seemed to recognize that his attempts at self-flagellation will be turned into headline fodder by the time he steps off the podium, as evidenced by his Bill Belichickian press conference on Wednesday where every answer was some variation of “we’re just focusing on San Francisco.” Anything outside of a canned answer about focusing on his next opponent will be hammered into the pre-set talking points that frame the narrative.
Look no further than Richard Sherman’s WWE-sized persona showing itself in the playoffs last season and the hype it created until Sherman had to pull back the reigns. Every time he talks trash is a story now, despite the fact that it’s pretty unlikely that anyone would ever become an NFL cornerback without talking shit. Any display outside of prostrate humbleness CAN become a distraction just because the media will keep asking about it being a distraction.
Fans like to read about distractions as much as talking heads like to push them. Why else would the story of Russell Wilson "acting white" be considered remotely relevant to a football conversation? Now, every Russell Wilson presser will be viewed through the lens of his blackness or lack thereof. Every apathetic face that Jay Cutler makes will become a running joke no matter the substance of what he's saying.
Everything they do or say is put under a microscope to detect for any traces of the narrative to pass along to the masses, feeding the public’s confirmation bias.
The landscape and tone of NFL culture -- fans, media, front office types, anonymous scouts and everyone else -- has changed so vastly in the last five years that a guy like Alex Smith wouldn't have lasted two years as a starter if he began his career now.
Maybe Griffin will reach the potential we saw during his rookie season and maybe he won't. Many of those who have grown up watching Washington have grown apathetic to the whole enterprise by now. If he didn't have that potential to be great, then no one would care. So let him fail and let him be a distraction. Wouldn't you rather have a distraction that's occasionally fun to watch than John Beck saying all the right things after a 30-point loss?
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