Media Day madness

PHOENIX, Ariz. — There was a guy wearing only a barrel. No, not the late, great Tim McKernan of Denver; this was someone representing a local C&W station, KNIX.

There was a young lady from a Hispanic sports station wearing something so tight it could barely be confused with a dress, much less a barrel.

There were what seemed like zillions of former NFL players walking around with microphones attempting to interview current NFL

Players — other than Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch, who would have been better off hiding in a barrel.

It was another descent into lunacy, now cleverly sponsored by Gatorade, whose product seemingly in well placed bottles or on enormous posters either could be credited or blamed for what we know as Media Day.

We wait in anticipation for the Tuesday of Super Bowl week, when the great secrets of an organization run by Roger Goodell and Robert Kraft — isn’t that what Richard Sherman told us? — are revealed in intimate conversations among 3,000 people, give or take a scribe.

Everyone is on his behavior. The players and coaches, that is, albeit Lynch’s best was still uncommunicative.

Still during the New England Patriots’ session, Bill Belichick was noted smiling for as long as four seconds. And later, when the Seahawks moved onto the platforms and floor of the building — now called US Airways Arena but soon to be Talking Stick Arena, home of the NBA Phoenix Suns — Richard Sherman tried to be humble.

(Note: If Lynch spent a lot of time there, they’d have to rename the place, “Non-Talking Stick Arena”).

Once, NFL Media Day was exactly as the label sounds, the first opportunity of Super Bowl week for the press, TV and radio folk to interview the participants. Surely you’ve seen the way the game and the attention have evolved.

There’s a picture of Joe Namath in swimming trunks, his feet dangling in a pool at the Miami area resort where the New York Jets were bivouacked before Super Bowl III. There are maybe a dozen journalists surrounding him. Ho, ho.

These days the interviews start Sunday night, a week before kickoff. And because this Media Day was held in an arena and not at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., some 15 miles west, the players were not in uniform, only in specially designed tunics. Yes, Tom Brady, all in white, could have been confused for someone nominated for an Academy Award, not just the MVP Trophy.

In one of those snippets of conversation you pick up wandering from rostrum to rostrum, Brady could be heard to say, “I like Matt Damon, all those guys from Boston.”

Whether that included ex-Patriot Ted Bruschi, now in the employment of ESPN, is problematical, but not far from Brady sat Bruschi, quickly dabbing pancake makeup on his brow, as TV types are required to do before appearing on camera.

Media Day in truth is Make Money Day. For a few years now, the public, at a fee, has been permitted to enter the building, gaze down at the chaotic scene below or the close-ups on the huge TV screens hanging from the walls and shout uncontrollably.

“Go, Hawks.”

If this makes the media uncomfortable, well, such is sports in the 21st century. Besides, with literally hundreds of photographers, still and videotape, clinging to ladders, hoisting cameras on poles and shoving their way into the waiting journalists, well, no harm, no foul.

Besides, it’s kind of enjoyable watching Deion Sanders and Michael Irvin, part of the NFL Network, trying to muscle their way to the front of the pack as they once did through opponents.

Kurt Warner, who was in three Super Bowls, one with the Arizona Cardinals, was holding a microphone and asking questions. And answering them. “Hey, Kurt, weren’t you hired to help Colin Kaepernick of the 49ers improve as a quarterback?” After a nod, Warner said, “I wish I was there now.”

Most of the players also probably wished they were somewhere else – Seattle defensive lineman Michael Bennett confessed as much — but they suffered nobly, listening to the queries from people who hadn’t been to a game all year or were in attendance just so their station could show them on the evening news.

Brady, befitting a man of class and patience, even asked for repeats when he couldn’t hear correctly so he could respond properly.

“We’ve bonded together,” Brady said of the Patriots. “We have a lot of belief in one another.”

The rest of us can drink to that. Gatorade, of course.