John Holler makes several good points in this story about a couple of NFL hopefuls who are having to defend their reputations due to the wonderful rumour-spreading abilities of social media and the willingness of sports reporters to try to create controversy:
Saturday at the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, we got our first intense view of this media “New World Order.” Cam Newton and Ryan Mallett are two of the top quarterback candidates in this year’s draft. Yet, both of them spent significant portions of their media access to address questions that have nothing to do with football.
Newton, who has been under the media microscope for the last several months, had to clarify a comment he made about wanting to be “an entertainer” and “an icon.” It was a flippant comment made by a kid who is going to turn 22 in May. In his case, the question should be, “Yeah, so?” not a sanctimonious rant by media “entertainers” and/or “icons” to pass judgment that he is not focused on being a football player, but more interested in being a rock star.
Guess what? Newton should have nothing to apologize for. If you’re a star in the NFL, you are an entertainer. People drop hundreds of dollars to watch you perform for three hours. There are thousands of people employed to discuss what you do for a living. There is little difference between Peyton Manning and Bruce Springsteen. They do the same thing — entertain packed houses wherever they perform. [. . .]
Mallett is a different story. He has been called to task by what everyone reporting on it claims are rumors that he not only has taken drugs in college (no!) but might have an addiction to the party lifestyle. If it is true, he won’t be the first and he won’t be the last college football player to do things he wouldn’t put on his résumé. The timing of the accusations, the week of the NFL Scouting Combine, seems interesting. However, his response was hard to justify.
If there was no basis to the accusations, Mallett should have been advised to come out aggressive — denying the charges immediately and owning the situation before he gets his 15 minutes with NFL teams. Instead, he deflected the questions, which only gives rise to more speculation. In the Facebook/TMZ world we live in now, you can bet that media members are going to be provided with information — some will pay for it, others won’t — that will portray a bad side of Mallett that he likely doesn’t deserve, but will surely have to answer to.
The stakes are high for both of these young men: a badly chosen phrase could lose them literally millions of dollars by lowering their chances of being a high draft choice. It’s tough enough for media personalities and politicians to tap-dance around awkward situations, but young 20-something athletes don’t have the experience to avoid falling into the verbal traps.
