There’s always a risk when it comes to media relaying sports figures‘ anonymous comments, and that’s maybe even more notable when it comes to the NFL draft. There’s so much attention on that draft and so many media looking to stand out with their draft coverage that it’s seemingly quite easy for “team sources” to get any comments out there they want, and that raises questions about if those comments are trying to be self-serving (for example, there’s the idea of a scout bashing a player his team secretly wants to make it more likely they’ll be able to pick them up lower in the draft). With anonymous comments in particular, too, there usually aren’t any consequences for the executives uttering them; they can say whatever they want about a prospect and as no one outside of the reporter they spoke to (and possibly an editor or two) knows it came from them, it’s not going to backfire on them. That always leads to some remarkable trashing of prospects, with the commentary on Kyler Murray from NFL Network’s Charley Casserly the latest example there.https://twitter.com/NFLMedia/status/1103042104828129281But this time around, there’s been some interesting pushback. And some of the most notable comes from Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio:
Casserly would be entitled to his opinions about Murray if they were indeed his own opinions. But Casserly peddled on the NFL-owned and NFL-operated broadcast network earlier today not his own opinions but opinions that were shared with him by someone who supposedly witnessed (or who heard about) Murray’s performances during Scouting Combine interviews.Murray reportedly sat for 10 interviews at the Scouting Combine. How many of those teams did Casserly talk to in crafting his report? The quotes being distributed by NFL Network indicate that Casserly talked to “more than two teams, I’ll leave it at that.” But he shouldn’t leave it at that; he should provide the specific number of teams. It could be as few as three or as many as all of them, and that’s a critically important piece of information.…Remember when NFL Network had to remind Warren Sapp that he isn’t a reporter, after he outed Jeremy Shockey as the Saints’ bounty snitch? What Casserly did today is the same thing. Instead of chastising Casserly, however, the NFL is reveling in his reporting.But who vetted Casserly’s report? Who are his sources for this report? Did NFL Network require Casserly to name them before allowing him to spread such strongly negative information about a player around whom NFL Network surely will be focusing much of its pre-draft hype?As to the unspecified number of teams to which Casserly spoke, did he talk to someone in the room? Did he talk to someone who talked to someone in the room? From how many of these interviews did he receive first- or second- or third-hand information?
Of course, PFT often uses its own anonymous sources. But Florio argues later in his piece that anonymously-sourced facts are different than anonymously-source opinions on prospects. “While anonymously-sourced fact (e.g., Casserly’s report that the Cardinals were shopping Josh Rosen at the Combine, something else that technically doesn’t fall under Casserly’s analyst umbrella) makes the football and non-football reporting world go ’round, anonymous opinion, especially prior to the draft, has become the fuel for those who would manipulate members of the media to push a narrative and/or to advance an agenda.” And he has a point there.
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