The Broncos locker room needs to learn a valuable lesson
Feb 17, 2021, 6:25 AM
The media is not your friend.
It’s funny to be writing that as a member of the media, but if you’re a professional football player, it’s true. Whatever you say can and will be used against not just you, but also your team. They’re looking for a crack in the armor.
They want to destroy you.
Mike Shanahan knew this. He knew that although, as individuals, members of the media can be thoughtful and trustworthy; as a group, they can be malicious. They can turn an innocuous comment into something toxic that lingers in the building. That creates division in the locker room. Doubt in the coaching staff. Weakness on the field.
There is no room for doubt or weakness in an NFL locker room, so Coach Shanahan made clear what his expectations were. You don’t air your dirty laundry in public. You have a problem with something we are doing as a coaching staff, you come upstairs and talk to us about it like men. And when you’re here at work, you don’t use your platform to talk about politics or your business or your brand or religion or anything other than football.
You have a job to do here and you’re lucky to have it. There are thousands, tens of thousands of dudes sitting by the phone right now waiting for the call to come and sit in your seat. As long as you’re here, you do things our way.
If you don’t, you’re gone.
Unsurprisingly, this approach worked. In the six years I was a Denver Bronco, we had no internal controversies. Nobody bad mouthing each other. No one lobbying for another player on another team to come and replace one of his teammates. That would never happen because everyone valued their jobs and valued the sacred bond and brotherhood of the locker room.
Football is about trust and sacrifice.
But now, it’s 2021 and we have members of the Denver Broncos advocating for their current quarterback — and current locker room brother — Drew Lock to be replaced by Deshaun Watson. Watson’s former teammate Kareem Jackson is doing so openly, unapologetically. Jerry Jeudy is a little more sly about it, but we get the picture. Jerry doesn’t like Drew as his quarterback; I guess because balls that him in the hands are too hard to catch.
What Jeudy doesn’t understand is that in the likely event that Drew Lock is the starting quarterback for the Broncos next season, he’s going to need him. Lock will have plenty of people to throw the ball to, but Jeudy will only have Lock. And if this Watson crap backfires, Jeudy could find himself, once again, persona non grata in the Broncos offense, playing the decoy and running backside posts, throwing up his hands and stomp-ing his feet.
If/when this happens, no one should be surprised.
I keep asking myself how in the sacred space of an NFL locker room, guys can think it’s okay to trash their quarterback. To trash another player. To trash the coaches. Don’t you understand that you’re in this together?
The only answer I can come up with is that Vic Fangio doesn’t subscribe to Mike Shanahan’s tight-lipped approach. Fangio’s players have not been coached up on media relations with the same fervor as Shanahan’s teams. Or learned the imperatives of keeping things in-house. Or of having each other’s backs, no matter what, even if you silently hope one of your teammates gets replaced.
It isn’t news that Vic Fangio doesn’t bother with Twitter. He doesn’t watch ESPN. Doesn’t surf the web. Doesn’t listen to podcasts. He is a quirky guy and he lets people be themselves. That’s a good thing. But at what point does he need to dial back the quirk and dial up the discipline?
What about brotherhood?
What about sacrifice?
What about doing things the right way?
George Paton might have a few thoughts about all of this. He’s watching it unfold. He sees who is talking. Who values that sacred bond that makes football teams special, and who would rather make friends on the internet?
The good thing about Paton’s arrival is that he won’t be clutching pearls when it comes to evaluating this team. He isn’t married to Drew Lock or Kareem Jackson or Jerry Jeudy.
The only question George Paton is asking — is this guy good for the locker room or not?
If not, you go bye-bye.
