{"id":600110,"date":"2026-04-22T18:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T18:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/600110\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T18:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T18:58:07","slug":"nfl-teams-shouldnt-try-to-dictate-coverage-and-reporters-shouldnt-tolerate-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/600110\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL teams shouldn&#8217;t try to dictate coverage, and reporters shouldn&#8217;t tolerate it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NFL thrives on media coverage. It craves it. But plenty of its teams want to reserve the right to control it.<\/p>\n<p>It happened on Tuesday, when Patriots coach Mike Vrabel made a surprise cameo before reporters. He made a new statement on a topic he\u2019d previously called \u201claughable.\u201d And then he took no questions.<\/p>\n<p>When he was made available to reporters \u201con the side,\u201d the reporters were told to turn off any microphones or cameras. They were <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nfl\/profootballtalk\/rumor-mill\/news\/mike-vrabels-tuesday-press-conference-was-unannounced-and-unexpected\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">told to ask football questions only<\/a>. One didn\u2019t, and Vrabel declined to answer it. Another one tried, and V.P. of communications Stacey James intervened.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s unacceptable. Vrabel is a grown man, 50 years old and entering his eighth season as a head coach. He can answer questions, on all relevant subjects. Particularly on the relevant subject he addressed in vague, general terms in his statement.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s free to decline to answer a question. He\u2019s free to answer it however he wants. But he should be expected to say something.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s bush league for an organization that craves media attention to try to dictate attention on its own terms. When it happens, reporters should call it out.<\/p>\n<p>And they should keep trying. On Tuesday, they were caught flat-footed. On Thursday night, they should ask any relevant question they want to ask. And Vrabel should be expected to answer, even if his answer is to decline to answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NFL thrives on media coverage. It craves it. But plenty of its teams want to reserve the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-600110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}