A guy named Giovani Bernard fumbled a fake punt snap, the butterfly effect being, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers blew a 17-3 lead and lost to the Cincinnati Bengals.
In the grand scheme of things, whatever, right?
Tampa Bay sucks this year. They’ll make the playoffs out of the awful NFC South, because nobody else in the NFC South seems to want to, but they’ll lose in the first round, and Tom Brady will retire again, then unretire, after realizing that he broke up his family to come back and suck, and he won’t want to go out like that, like Michael Jordan, who never should have been a Washington Wizard, but that’s another story, though one that I feel relevant.
Nobody would care about Giovani Bernard, other than his family and close friends, except that he walked away from reporters as they tried to get what happened on the fumbled fake punt snap play, and then Kevin Durant, who is part of this story because, of course he is, made an issue of reporters asking questions after games.
All of the people involved in this story to this point make money playing kids’ games, just to make that clear.
A lot of us like watching kids’ games, so there is money to be made there.
I’m not saying the people who make money because of kids’ games is illegitimate or anything.
Just that, they’re not curing cancer or getting the homeless in out of the record cold, or anything else even remotely important.
This story got legs this week when one of the reporters who wanted to know what Giovani Bernard had to say about the fumbled fake punt snap ended up apologizing for pressing him to talk.
Her name is Jenna Laine, not that you particularly care that much.
As part of her apology, she noted that she was just doing her job, which is to ask football players about things like fumbled fake punt snaps.
She also gets paid because of the people playing kids’ games thing.
(Incidentally, so do I. Sorry for not having pointed that out yet. I do other things; but the writing and talking about people who play kids’ games is part of what I get paid to do. And lucky me, I get paid well to do what I do. So, there’s that.)
Keep in mind that this Jenna Laine person gets yelled at by a person above her on the ESPN food chain if she doesn’t ask Giovani Bernard about the fumbled fake punt snap, because the people need to know.
That’s assumed, for some reason.
In reality, the people don’t really need to know.
Honestly, the world wasn’t hanging on whatever Giovani Bernard had to say about the fumbled fake punt snap.
How a guy named Salt Bae was able to get his hands on the actual World Cup, now, let’s get somebody to grill people on that.
Giovani Bernard fumbles are way, way, way down the list of what people care about, even if you’re a Tampa Bay Bucs fan.
Anyway, so this week, Jenna Laine was, as expected, back on the job, which has her in the Tampa Bay Bucs locker room.
An aside here: yes, it’s odd that reporters go into locker rooms to ask questions of players and coaches after games, and even odder that this is done during the week after practice.
This is akin to reporters and camera people surrounding me in my bedroom after my 45-minute Peloton ride before lunch.
“Opening statement? Yeah, good ride. I let off a little today, averaged 223 on the output, trying to preserve something for the weekend. Questions.”
Jenna Laine tried to ask a question of Carlton Davis, who I just learned today is a cornerback on this Tampa Bay team.
Good for him and his family that he is.
He signed a three-year extension in the offseason paying him $30 million guaranteed, so, he must be good.
(I mean, that’s a lot of money. Even more than I make, and like I said, I get paid well.)
Our new friend Jenna Laine’s question was benign, if not banal, asking about the skill players of whoever it is that Tampa Bay is playing this weekend.
Quick check: the Arizona Cardinals.
Tens of thousands will no doubt tune in.
Carlton Davis, per accounts from other media sources, threw an icy stare at Jenna Laine.
“There’s an incident with Gio Bernard, and as a team, we just feel as if the people who’s supposed to be on our side should be on our side, and because it happens to him, we understand that it can happen to anyone of us. So right now, we just feel that this is a sensitive subject to talk about when we do talk to you guys and how vulnerable we can be at times,” Carlton Davis said.
“I don’t want to shout anyone out, but it’s just a respect thing,” he said. “I respect you doing your job. You respect me doing my job.”
Let’s go to the scorecards here.
Carlton Davis gets paid to play a game.
Jenna Laine gets paid to ask people questions about how they get paid to play a game.
They’re dumb questions about a dumb game that means nothing to anybody five minutes after it’s over.
It doesn’t have to be this dramatic.
Everybody involved here should honestly be ecstatic that they get paid as much as they do to do what they do, instead of being such assholes.
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Chris Graham
