The disconnect between pro sports teams and the media is growing

Whenever I hear someone accuse media members of tiptoeing around an athlete or a team because they’re worried their access will be cut, I always think: Access? What access? There is no access anymore.

Sports reporters’ opportunities to interview players and coaches have been reduced drastically the past 20 years, and when those writers or broadcasters do get the chance to ask questions, the answers tend to resemble hostages’ readings of their captor’s manifestos rather than anything that might be considered interesting or quotable.

So when Bears defensive coordinator Vic Fangio all but questioned cornerback Kyle Fuller’s heart and desire at a press conference Tuesday, it was shocking. Few people in sports are forthcoming these days, especially in a structured setting. If openness had a scale, secretive Bears head coach John Fox would be at the bottom, which might help explain any tension between him and the talkative Fangio.

The biggest misperception about sports journalism is that reporters are around the people they cover a lot and that they’re able to interview them often. This is definitely not the case in the NFL. The Bears limit Fangio and offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains’ exposure to the media to once a week, as if any more would lead to cancer, and most certainly not after games, when there might be uncomfortable questions about play calling. When the team allows the media into the locker room during the week, a reporter might be able to score an interview with a practice-squad player, but most of the people of significance are hiding in other parts of the building.

So access? What access?

Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman threatened a radio talk show host after a press conference Tuesday – not with physical violence but with something he thought would just as effectively knock him out.

Sherman had screamed at offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell on the sideline during a recent game after the Seahawks had tried a pass play at the goal line rather a run play. The play choice stirred up dark memories of Seattle’s goal-line interception in Super Bowl XLIX.

On Tuesday, Jim Moore of ESPN 710 in Seattle asked Sherman, in essence, whether he thought he had a better idea of what to call than someone who gets paid to do it for a living.

Here’s the exchange between the two as Sherman headed to the locker room after the press conference:

Sherman: “You don’t want to go there. You do not. I’ll ruin your career.”

Moore: “You’ll ruin my career? How are you going to do that?”

Sherman: “I’ll make sure you don’t get your media pass anymore.”

Moore: “Is that right?”

Sherman: “Yes, it is.”

Sherman later apologized, but it didn’t matter. His threat probably reinforced what a lot of people believe, that only by the grace of God and teams’ generosity are we media members allowed to attempt to gather small crumbs of information. Inherent in that thinking is the idea that one wrong step, one uncomfortable question, and you’ll be out in the cold, watching the games on television rather that from the press box.

And we’d be losing what, exactly? The opportunity to sit in on the head coach’s postgame press conference, which is limited to six or seven questions before a public-relations operative ends it? The chance to hear a player’s bogus explanation for “accidentally” using performance-enhancing drugs? Being deprived of that sounds more like a vacation to me.

Teams want to “control the message.’’ You know what the message is? That they’re control freaks. The lack of access helps explain why more and more sports coverage is geared toward analysis and talent assessment. You don’t need to have access to a player to do the job. You just need tape of the game. But imagine what would have been lost if the wild-and-crazy 1985 Bears had been covered like that.

One of the most famous photos in American sports history is of Joe Namath chatting with sportswriters poolside at a Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., hotel three days before Super Bowl III. There are no Jets personnel trying to stop him. He and the writers are just … chatting. Was Namath worse for the experience? Were the Jets? Did the world fall apart because the big, bad media talked with him? Namath and the Jets won that Super Bowl, Sports Illustrated got a great photo and those reporters gave their readers what they couldn’t have gotten from a formal press conference.

If sportswriters tried getting that close to an NFL player in a beach chair today, they’d probably get tased. That’s the kind of access we understand.