Storylines in the NFL this season have ranged from domestic violence cases involving some of the league’s best players to, most recently, deflated football allegations involving one of the league’s best teams. In commenting on these controversial off-field topics, NFL Network on-air personnel face a challenging predicament. As the net’s Steve Wyche put it, “How do you walk the line of covering the people who sign your paycheck?” Wyche spent nearly two decades working for newspapers before joining NFL Network in ’08, and he admits that he and some of his colleagues with similar backgrounds “had concerns” with this issue. What he found, though, is that regardless of a topic’s sensitivity, the net does not shy away from reporting the news. “We’ve got a band of some really strong reporters -- Judy Battista, Michael Silver, myself, Ian Rapoport, Albert Breer, Jeff Darlington -- who have all covered major stories, and we know how to do the job.” One major difference does exist in working for the league-owned network. Wyche: “The speculation element of a story is the line that we don’t cross. We don’t want to jump to conclusions, and we try not to guess.” Tuesday’s Super Bowl Media Day coverage provided an example of this philosophy, as Rapoport and Silver weighed in on Deflategate. Rapoport said of the Patriots, “This situation really shapes up incredibly well for them. They could not, even if they tried, create a better us-against-the-world, everybody-hates-us atmosphere. ... This is a goldmine for Patriots coach Bill Belichick.” Silver responded, “The Super Bowl in my experience is about minimizing distractions, and make no mistake, this is sapping psychic energy. I’m not saying it’s going to doom the Patriots, but I’ve got to disagree with Ian that this is the best thing that could have happened.” The exchange, Wyche said, “was 100 percent organic,” not planned ahead of time.
ONE OF A KIND: What makes Media Day unique, Wyche said, is that the league “allows a different element into the room.” He noted reporters donned in wedding dresses as an example. Although Media Day in theory is an opportunity for reporters to interview Super Bowl-bound players and coaches, coverage in reality is of the event itself. Wyche: “It’s its own spectacle. This thing happens five or six days before the game, and it draws enough attention that people talk about it for a full 24-hour news cycle, if not more. And that’s just the way the NFL likes having it.”
