First of all, Graham Bensinger's show is not exactly top tier viewing. Nobody in Seattle probably watches it. But, he published a clip that was thought to be off the record just prior to starting the official interview. Bad news for MM.
Secondly, Dave Pearson, the Seahawks longtime PR man, has been with the team for decades and should have been on scene for this interview, understanding what was off the record and on. Failure to make it clear to the coach.
Now, we hear Bensinger sent the full clips over to the Seahawks in advance and they raised no concerns. Two strikes, Pearson. Failure. One more and you're out under a new owner.
It's the first full-on fiasco for MacDonald, so perhaps it's just an anomaly. One the other hand it is a distraction that won't go away in the media and upcoming game telecasts.
I suggest the Seahawks should stop patting themselves on the back. Bad look now.
No comprende any of what you just said.
ReplyDeleteGoogle it, the story is everywhere including ESPN.com.
ReplyDeleteI am going to offer my comments in two separate posts Wayne. First, let me link a couple of items. One, here is the full interview of Macdonald by Graham Bensinger which is at the heart of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkKQLNOk_y8. Also, Bensinger issued a statement last night in which he indicated his regret in all of that being made public. https://awfulannouncing.com/nfl/graham-bensinger-mike-macdonald-official-statement.html
ReplyDeleteNow to part two. To say this is a fiasco Wayne I am going to say that is a bit much and I will explain in a moment. But I will agree with you on your comments about the Seahawks PR guys. Your criticism of Pearson here is more than fair and hopefully they will learn some lessons from this.
ReplyDeleteNow to why I don't think this will be as big a fiasco/problem as it may appear. Many observers around the league when this first came down yesterday were on the side of Macdonald and the Seahawks and TBH would be more than happy to go tell Sean Payton (Denver Broncos coach who is the coach mentioned by MM in the clip in question) to go where the sun don't shine (and that of course is keeping it clean here Wayne). So I because of this do not believe this is going to be a big deal. Media might make a mention of this, but this will blow over I expect very quickly. There is a reason teams do not allow fans to bring cell phones to these open practices and this whole thing is why.
As for Bensinger, he has been doing this for a long time. His show was a staple on regional sports channels around the country but with those going under, he moved his show to OTA network affiliates. Had a look at the list of his stations. Many of them are airing the show late at night or early in the morning including in Seattle so you are right, no one is watching. But I'm going to make a guess here that with the reduced visibility his show has now that he's on OTA stations around the country, he was attempting to do a couple of things here and I feel like it blew up bigtime in his face. One, generate clickbait for himself and two, get a certain reaction out of people considering this is an issue that has come up before in the league. Bensinger is not a rookie journalist, he has been doing this show for over a decade now. He should know better than to pull this type of stunt. My two cents.
I called it a first fiasco because until it happened MM was being fully crowned as the king of NFL coaches with not a trace of criticism.
ReplyDeleteThe definition of fiasco is
An event or plan that goes completely wrong and ends in a messy disaster.
The interview was to give him more national exposure and lionize him further. It ended up messy and embarrassing on all sides. That's all. It caused a social and broadcast firestorm.
As always, I value your takes.
Which is fair. At the end of the day, lessons learned for everyone.
DeleteMaybe more of a tempest in a teapot.... Lol. I do think that Seattle sports is soft on reporting so maybe MM wasn't worried about what he said in that scenario.
ReplyDeleteI hate to read about this as the real change in the coaching succession has been an absence of drama that was in the Pete Carroll days, and don't get me wrong, I loved Pete, but even more, I love Macdonald's down-to-earth demeanor.
ReplyDelete