CLEVELAND, Ohio (TheOBR.com) Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans!
THE DAILY BLOVIATION
Sports and politics don’t mix, at least on the OBR. Because we’re built around our community, and communities can self-destruct when politics, religion and other sensitive and important topics are introduced, we try to push back on political discussion in the way that we moderate the forums. There are some members of our community who are passionate enough about their political views that they will refer to them, and we try to minimize those situations that slip under our radar.
I mean, I get it. I have strong views myself, but refuse to cross a line where I use my platform here as a means to express them. I also refuse to allow this to be a place that separates friends over politics.
The reason is that for an hour or two a day, we get to spend our time caring about something that does not require anyone to deal with the real problems facing us, or realms of hard-core belief. Instead, we ask whether the interior offensive line is fixed or merely rearranged? We ponder Shedeur Sanders and whether he can hit the deep out?
It’s about fun and escape from the noise that surrounds us. Nobody gets hurt in any real way. It’s a fenced-in enclosure where we can just focus on a topic that we all, despite our differences in other areas, still continue to love after 27 years of shared aggravation.
So, I get a little territorial when someone from the industry explains that the fence is naive.
Outgoing ESPN executive vice president David Roberts, stepping into retirement after 48 years in the business, went on the Higher Learning podcast this week and took a shot at the “stick to sports” crowd, including the executives inside his own building. “Nothing drove me crazier,” he said, than hearing “we don’t mix politics with sports.” His verdict on that mentality: “That’s just never been me, because that’s not reality.”
Look, I respect what Roberts has to say. He’s got a long resume and track record of success in a business that prides itself on high turnover and chewing up and spitting out executives, sometimes for provably false justifications. I’m one of them.
At the same time, though, ESPN has deliberately backed away from mixing politics with sports after blowback from viewers. They just finished laying off some commentators who mixed politics with sports, which appears to be another step away from an old agenda that seemed to encourage intermixing the two.
My problem is this: The fight over politics in sports is a symptom. The disease is that the entire sports, and arguably, the “real news” content economy now runs on exactly one fuel, and it isn’t accuracy. It’s heat. Whatever gets the click gets made. The major news networks slant coverage right or left because it’s in their interest to carve out a dedicated audience that wants to be told what it wants to hear. Economics seems like a greater pull than true objectivity.
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“Let’s stop creating narratives that aren’t there for likes and clicks.” – Jerry Jeudy, who understands today’s media better than most of the people paid to analyze it.
On Sunday, ESPN Cleveland posted a clip from a Jerry Jeudy TikTok livestream. A question about who he wants starting at quarterback appears on the screen. Jeudy throws up four fingers. Deshaun Watson wears No. 4. Cue approximately nine thousand takes about the locker room having spoken, including a long thread on the Watercooler.
There is only one problem, and both the real ESPN site and Pro Football Talk noticed it immediately: the video skips. There’s a visible edit between the question and the fingers. As PFT put it with admirable bluntness, “the video isn’t reliable.” He could have been answering anything. Four fingers is four fingers. It’s not a deposition.
Jeudy, to his credit, did not send a publicist. He went straight at it via a Twitter reply: “Y’all cut the clip perfectly for that narrative.” Then, later, the whole philosophy in three sentences: “I don’t speak on decisions that aren’t mine to make. I support my teammates/Brothers, I do my job, and control what I can control. Let’s stop creating narratives that aren’t there for likes and clicks.”
And then the kicker, which I have not stopped thinking about since: “I bet this won’t go viral because it’s too positive/real for y’all.”
It did not go viral.
ESPN Cleveland could handle this easily. They could post the video pre- and post-edit to prove that the edit was just a convenience to keep it short and not something that changes the meaning of how Jeudy responded. They have not chosen to do so as of this morning. Given the station’s penchant, despite the presence of legendary Browns reporter Tony Grossi, for playing fans for rubes with misleading camp passing statistics and dubious scoops from some hosts, I’m going to side with Jeudy here until I see proof that the edit is legitimate.
Still, none of this changes anything that matters. Watson is entering the final year of his team-wrecking contract, and is supposedly finally healthy after two Achilles surgeries. Sanders started seven games as a rookie and won three of them with an offensive line held together by duct tape and good intentions. The competition is real. The controversy, to a significant degree, is manufactured.
So no, I don’t want politics in my football. But I’ll go further than that. I don’t want the incentive structure that produces the politics fight anywhere near my football either, because it’s the same structure that turns a receiver (perhaps) goofing around on TikTok into a locker-room referendum before he’s finished the stream.
Jeudy’s right. It won’t go viral. It’s too positive and too real.
We’ll run it anyway. That’s sort of the whole idea around here.
Have a good one! GO BROWNS!
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WRAPPING UP
When not demanding to see the unedited tape, Barry McBride is the Publisher and Founder of the OBR and bloviates this nonsense every morning. You can follow him on Twitter @barrymcbride or write him at barry@theobr.com if you are so compelled.
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