Rampage
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- Mar 19, 2019
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Some coaches, like Bruce Arians, flatly refuse to ever welcome Hard Knocks to town because they don’t want to allow cameras to invade the personal and private meetings with players whose NFL journeys have ended, at least for now. Last year, Raiders coach Jon Gruden minimized scenes exposing these interactions from the show.
The Rams apparently will allow it. On Saturday, coach Sean McVay explained the challenges of informing players that they were being removed from the roster with cameras present.
“I mean, it’s always tough, you know, there’s never a good way to deliver bad information,” McVay told reporters. “But we always try to be clear, open and honest and to the point. . . . [Y]ou just hate being on camera. It takes away your ability to truly be authentic and genuine. Those are private moments that you want to have. When they got these robo cameras set up, it’s not an ideal thing to have to have difficult conversations.
“Now, what I will say these guys have done is, they’ve been respectful. Like I said, I understand they have a job to do, but it certainly is tough, but it’s also a reflection. Like I was talking to [G.M.] Les [Snead] about it yesterday, and some of our coaches — the way these guys handled the tough information, I think is a real reflection of the quality of men that we bring in here. To be able to have the class and to be able to handle it and look you in the eye and do it the right way. You’re just saying, ‘Man, I hope I would handle it the way that these guys did if I was on the other side of this conversation, having to receive some of these difficult conversations.'”
That’s good and appropriate, but the best and most appropriate way to handle these difficult conversations would be to never expose them to the world, period. While it makes for good TV (and given the ratings this year, Hard Knocks needs as much good TV as it can muster), it’s just not the right way to handle these sensitive moments. It never has been, it never will be.
More than seven years ago, Commissioner Roger Goodell expressed a desire to make the process of releasing players more “humane.” The process will never be as humane as it could be as long as a camera is involved.