The New York Media Is Really Digging Deep To Manufacture Jets Controversy
By Matt Dolloff (@mattdolloff)
BOSTON (CBS) -- The New York media must have gotten fat and happy with the Rex Ryan Headline Factory. They're desperate to re-live the euphoric highs of the former Jets head coach spewing quotes like a firehose, and new coach Todd Bowles isn't giving it to them. His measured, even-keeled approach is pretty much the polar opposite of Rex's obnoxious bluster.
The Jets players have mostly followed Bowles in how they deal with the media, leaving reporters to scrounge for whatever muck they can scrape off the podium. Or just take quotes out of context, douse the context in kerosene, and heave it into the incinerator - which is what they did with Sheldon Richardson this week.
They know one of the biggest eyeball-grabbers in headline-writing would be a player guaranteeing a win against the Patriots. So when Richardson said: "This is going to be another win for us. We'll let you all write the columns about validating wins and stuff like that. This is going to be another win in the win column if we go out there and execute and do what we're supposed to do"...reporters took that and ran with it as Richardson "guaranteeing" a victory.
But as with so many quotes on a daily basis, Richardson was taken wildly out of context and the context was blasted with napalm, stuffed in a pod and rocketed into outer space. The one line that sounds like a guarantee is "This is going to be another win for us." But he was asked if a win would validate the Jets as a team, and what he meant to say was that it would be just another win. That it wouldn't validate them any more than any other win would. But on paper, the comment sounds like a prediction from the notoriously brash Richardson.
Based on Richardson's reaction on Twitter, the media completely misconstrued his comments: "This is why I don't want to do interviews anymore roger hope y'all enjoy that BS".
Richardson isn't alone; safety Marcus Gilchrist also made headlines when he said the Jets were preparing for Tom Brady "the same way you prepare for Kirk Cousins." Only the troll-iest of trolls would take this comment as "OMG MARCUS GILCHRIST SAID TOM BRADY IS JUST AS GOOD AS KIRK COUSINS AHHHH", but what Gilchrist was trying to say was they aren't preparing for the Patriots any more intensely or deeply as they would for any other opponent. It's not their Super Bowl, like Rex would treat it every year. It's just another game.
Bowles clearly has a sort of Belichickian approach to speaking with media that he has passed down to his players. But they are enduring some growing pains in that regard, because in attempting to say nothing they supplied the media with more than enough raw materials to fashion their nothing into something. But in this age of clickbait and rampant sensationalism, it's practically impossible to say anything without your words being stripped of the context, which was then beaten with heavy clubs and fed to a pack of rabid hyenas while its family was forced to watch.
Richardson is typically an outspoken guy, so the say-nothing approach has a bit of a learning curve to it for him. He just learned the hard way that if he doesn't want to deal with outside noise, just ignore it. Literally give them nothing. Be less of a household name and more store-brand. You're just trying to get better every day. You're just getting ready for the Patriots. You just want to do your job.
In trying to downplay Patriots - Jets and mitigate the media madness, Jets players inadvertently sent a few headlines through the meat grinder. And in Richardson's case it seems to be the last time he falls for it.
It's no surprise that the New York media is hard at work trying to manufacture controversy. We're as guilty of it as anyone here in Boston. But in dealing with Bowles and the Jets' new approach, they're getting by with scraps.
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Matt Dolloff is a writer for CBSBostonSports.com. His opinions do not necessarily reflect that of CBS or 98.5 The Sports Hub. Read more from Matt here. Follow him on Twitter @mattdolloff and email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.