Matthew Emmons-US Presswire
Today’s post about the up coming Super Bowl deals with the media obligations that the players have to go through during this week. As most of you will have figured out, this post stems from the fact that Giants’ defensive end Osi Umenyiora somehow forgot to show up to a mandatory media session and the National Football League front office decided that it would cost him 20 thousand dollars. On a side note I wonder if there are set fines for such things or if it goes on an individual basis. The defensive lineman, through a statement released by the team, said it was a mix up and it would not happen again.
“I misunderstood the schedule,” Umenyiora said in a statement released by the team. “It won’t happen again, and I will be at tomorrow’s media session and available after the game. I apologize for any inconvenience my absence this morning may have caused.”
But here is my point to all of this. Yes, this is a special week and the players are not asked to do this all the time, but someone forgetting to go to a media session really need to be fined? And if so, would it not be wise to do it after the Super Bowl, so that it does not become part of the questions that not just the player himself has to answer, but so does his coaches and maybe some of his team mates? And I know that 20K for someone like Umenyiora is a drop in the bucket, but that is not the problem I have with this. I could the fine a lot ore if he missed a walk through for his team or a film section, however what the Giants DE did was miss 45 minutes of people asking him questions.
I would be all for the team docking him that money, and even more, if he was to miss a practice, but to miss a media session, where the questions are for the most part the same, just asked differently, I do not truly find it right. On a side note, I like to know what the NFL does with the fines, in this day and age it would be nice if the money went to worth while organizations to help the needy and not into the league’s vault. But this is another subject for another post, I guess. Also I could be in favor of a fine if the player missed more than one, but for a single offense it makes no sense, whatever happened to a “second chance”?
In the end this seems to be over and done and today is the last media session that the teams need to deal with until post Sunday’s game. Hopefully all will go smoothly, everyone will be there, and there won’t be a need to talk about it on SportsCenter (or any of the other 10′s of football shows on television nowaday) and no one will have to lose money over it.
Tags: New York Giants, NFL, Osi Umenyiora, Roger Goodell, Super Bowl
Having lived in the Empire State, first down state and now living in upstate, most of his life AEM has always enjoyed sports, while never having any favorite team, with the exception of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is old enough to remember the Islanders being great when Mike Bossy was the leading man of the dynasty, to have watched the Mets win it all, to have seen the New York Giants win the Super Bowl (the one before Eli Manning did it), to remember when St. John's was good under Lou Carnesecca, and many more story lines that have happened in the state of New York. And of course, he is old enough to remember the "miracle on ice" that the US Hockey team did in this very state, in Lake Placid, a place he has visited many times, just like the Hall of Fame of Baseball in Cooperstown.
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