Reporters who cover the NFL have in recent years become increasingly sensitive to the mental health of men who play professional football. As long as mental health sensitivity doesn’t threaten media access to players after every game, no matter how agonizing the result.
It is the balance that must be found and the sporting media issue of the moment. Naomi Osaka’s withdrawal from Roland-Garros brings to the fore the tension between players’ mental health and compulsory attendance at press conferences. I recently wrote that players should be given the option to speak to journalists, and if it was voluntary, many players would still choose to speak. Many media vigorously oppose this approach, for obvious reasons; they don’t want their job to become more difficult if players have to be persuaded to speak. They prefer the automatic, instinctive right of players to be available after every game, even if the players don’t want to be.
The position that access should remain mandatory continues to ignore the fact that players are not actually required to say anything. As long as they show up, they may give unresponsive responses or repeat slogans like “I’m just here so I don’t get fined.” And they won’t be fined. So if he was really willing to show up in the first place, many would still choose to speak.
But how do you reconcile the mental well-being of the players with the hope that they will hold the field with a group of strangers and be forced to relive in the cool fumes of defeat their own performance failures that contributed to the result? It’s not, as some would say, just a game. Players can lose their starting jobs and possibly their spots on the roster if they make too many mistakes. They can land elsewhere, but with less money, and they will have to move. Eventually, a career will be over before the player wants it to be, forcing him to prematurely figure out how to fund a lifestyle based on constantly earning an NFL salary.
Too many fans have a “shut up and entertain us” attitude when it comes to professional athletes. Many of those same fans also have a “shut up and speak when you’re expected to” attitude when it comes to press availability. Even fans who pay no attention to things players say in post-match press conferences will spout lines like, “You get paid to do it, so do it.”
It is appropriate to have a larger conversation about whether they should be required to do so. Years ago, the NFL needed players to agree to talk to reporters in order to give reporters reasons to write about the game. Today, the media doesn’t need automatic access. to write about the NFL or its team. The media and those who write/speak for them will find a way to cover teams and games.
Again, I’m not saying there shouldn’t be locker room access. But players who don’t want to talk shouldn’t have to.
