Dirty laundry, pot shots and NFL exits
The 'transparency' that has followed Russell Wilson's departure has been illuminating in some ways, but it also makes me wonder about media motivations, including my own.
There is a reckoning that occurs when a professional franchise gives up on something.
A moment of transparency when all the issues and problems that have been minimized or outright denied for months, maybe even years, are openly acknowledged. It’s like this moment of clarity, and nothing short of a revelation for the reporters who are covering that team.
I first noticed this in 2003 while covering the Seattle Sonics for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. When it became undeniably obvious the team would be missing the playoffs, there was suddenly a willingness on the part of coach Nate McMillan and even some players to acknowledge and discuss what had been missing, what had gone wrong and where improvements were needed. It was weird. For months it had been like mining coal — dirty and demanding — to get anyone to acknowledge that things weren’t awesome, and suddenly there was this willingness to engage in what amounted to a public autopsy on the cause of death for that year’s playoff ambitions. It happened again in 2004.
When I switched to the Seahawks in 2005, I encountered a whole new level of secrecy and discretion on the part of a franchise. You couldn’t just call the GM to ask about something. The coach didn’t hang around after practice, talking with reporters. It was much harder to understand the personal dynamics at play. At least it was until a player got traded or a coach got fired, and suddenly you were being told a whole lot of things that no one breathed a word about. Of course, this was the NFL so you were being told these things with the understanding that this was on background, their names would not be mentioned, because the NFL is where fundamentally sound reporting goes to die.
This creates a tricky reality for a reporter. On the one hand, this is information that is very interesting to your audience, who are ultimately your primary customers. On the other hand, you’re getting this information because the person providing it wants it out there, and it’s not hard to understand why. The team and the people left behind have a vested interested in making it clear how difficult that departing individual was to deal with whether it was a player, a coach or a team executive who — after resigning — complained about the quality of the hotel room the team was paying for on the vacation after he resigned. Oops. That’s an example of a strategic leak right there!
You can tell where this is going, right? Yep. We’re back at Russell Wilson. On Tuesday, I wrote about the way in which several specific members of the Seattle media have flipped from being Wilson’s most zealous defenders to his most vocal critics. Two comments that came back got me to think about how this fits into the bigger picture of professional sports coverage as it’s currently practiced in the year of our Lord, 2022:
“Your comments about media now coming out with the ‘We always knew this …’ makes me wonder how much of this is due to pernicious access journalism. Now that Pete has publicly denounced Russell (if you parse his post-Game 1 comments), it has freed these so-called journalists to now share what they knew, because there's no fear of being shut out of access to Seahawks players and team personnel.
— Brad Fisher
“What I’ve been more annoyed by, though, is several of the Seattle sports media saying - rather arrogantly – ‘Well, we already knew all of this,’ when the topic comes up about Russell’s demands for things like an office, separate staff, extra housing on the road for his various attendants, and other special treatment. Many of those saying ‘We already knew all of this’ may have been aware, but we fans (and media consumers) sure didn’t know most of it. Or else it was rumors these media types didn’t acknowledge until now when he’s in Denver.”
— Jon
For the record — and just because I’m a pedantic twit — I would like to point out that there is a difference between a “demand” and a “request.” To me, a demand would have been something Wilson sought to impose through force of negotiation or withholding service. I am not aware of any instance in which Wilson demanded something like office space or travel accommodations in that manner. As for requests, well people have plenty of those, and while the number of requests may indicate a certain level of neediness, that’s really a matter of perspective.
I’ve got a pretty good example of this. Here’s a story — as it was told to me. When Wilson was a rookie and named the starting quarterback, he inquired about getting a suite for the home games. The front-office executive said that of course it would be possible to get a suite, and he’d connect him with someone who worked in sales. Except Wilson wasn’t asking about purchasing a suite, he wondered if he might be given one. The official pointed out that all players get two tickets for each game.