Media Day at the Super Bowl is much less about getting groundbreaking quotes for in-depth journalism and much more about ridiculousness and chaos.
Super Bowl Media Day 2017: 7 things to watch during Opening Night
Donald Trump is sure to come up Monday night.
Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images
Reporters come in costumes and several come up with the most inane questions possible.
The NFL has leaned into that reputation and now holds “Super Bowl Opening Night Fueled by Gatorade,” a spectacle that will be held at Minute Maid Park, which fans can actually purchase tickets to attend.
It will get started at 8 p.m. ET and broadcast live on NFL Network, but amidst all the wackiness, there may be some interviews worth keeping an eye on. Here are seven things to watch during the media chaos Monday night:
1. Martellus Bennett is a quote machine
The New England Patriots tight end is only in his first season with the team after he was traded by the Chicago Bears in March, but he has enjoyed every second of being on a winning team. While the rest of the players typically stick to “The Patriot Way,” Bennett has had zero problem being very excited about going to a Super Bowl and has voiced his mind every step of the way.
Among his greatest hits of the 2016 season, Bennett said winning is like having sex, playing football in cold weather is sexier like women on Halloween, and that he channeled Netflix’s Luke Cage to shake off an injury.
With absurd questions likely headed his way Monday night, Bennett is as prepared as any to give absurd answers.
2. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick get asked about their relationship with Donald Trump
Cameras spotted a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap in Brady’s locker last September. He’s been sidestepping questions about his relationship with Trump ever since. Later that year, when Trump first proposed a ban on Muslim immigrants in the wake of the San Bernardino shootings, Brady was asked again about his relationship with him.
“Donald is a good friend of mine. I have known him for a long time. I support all my friends. That is what I have to say. He’s a good friend of mine. He’s always been so supportive of me,” Brady said.
This fall, with the Presidential campaign in full swing, Brady was asked again about Trump, specifically the candidate’s infamous “locker room talk” assertion. Brady refused to answer and walked off the stage.
Bill Belichick wrote a letter of endorsement that Trump shared on the campaign trail in November.
Since then, Brady hasn’t had much to say about his friend, but the Patriots quarterback’s name came up this month during the inauguration when Trump wished the team luck.
Given the election results and the controversy surrounding Trump’s ban on refugees from majority Muslim countries, the questions are bound to come up again.
3. Matt Ryan will answer questions without saying much of anything
Ryan is media friendly enough, but his answers tend toward the vanilla. Even during Media Day, when the questions, and the people asking them, will not be typical of a regular season media scrum, don’t expect Ryan’s answers to deviate from his standard, somewhat bland answers.
4. Falcons players will mention their “brotherhood”
It’s a favorite catchphrase of head coach Dan Quinn, and it’s a principle the Falcons credit with helping them get to this point. They like to talk about it a lot. It will come up.
5. There will be questions about ping pong
The Falcons have spent this whole season competing against each other in heated ping pong battles in the locker room. The national media just found out about it during the postseason, and people are bound to be curious about who the best ping pong player on the Falcons roster may be. (It’s Julio Jones, but long snapper Josh Harris has given Jones some great battles this season.)
6. Deflategate everything
It’s going to come up. It’s been coming up all month. Brady said he’s not going to share his feelings on Roger Goodell until after the Super Bowl ... maybe. Owner Robert Kraft acknowledged that it strained his friendship with Goodell. And Belichick will just brush it off with his own version of Marshawn Lynch’s “I’m just here so I won’t get fined” answer.
And now the world’s press will get to ask them about it and be dumbfounded by the lack of answers they get.
7. Noisegate questions
A handful of Boston media members have gotten riled up about the disparity between coverage of Deflategate and the relative lack thereof regarding the Falcons’ own rule-breaking scandal, Noisegate. The NFL found that the Falcons had pumped fake crowd noise into the Georgia Dome in 2013 and 2014, and the team was fined $350,000 and lost a fifth-round pick in the 2016 draft for the violations.
The Falcons went 10-22 over those two seasons, so it’s unlikely they gained a competitive advantage, but hey, cheating is cheating.
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