There is No Wednesday Super Bowl Feature
Today's column about Tuesday's Eagles and Chiefs press conferences has been cancelled due to undistinguished journalism.
NEW ORLEANS — Someone asked Cooper DeJean a question about sports gambling at the Philadelphia Eagles media availability on Tuesday.
DeJean is a rookie defensive back. He comes from a small town in Iowa, not Las Vegas or Monte Carlo. As far as I know, he has never been involved in, say, a point shaving scandal; that’s not the sort of thing that would escape my notice. And DeJean looked a little nervous, or perhaps he was just done with the whole media thing, a bad-but-relatable headspace to be in on Super Bowl Tuesday. I can’t imagine why anyone would solicit this lad’s opinion on sports gambling.
I went to DeJean’s podium because Darius Slay delivered a fun soundbite on Monday night about DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell, the Eagles’ wise-beyond-their-years rookie cornerbacks.
“I watched both of their tapes in college,” Slay said. “I thought Quinyon for-sure was the best one on the board. And I thought Coop was gonna be a steal. I was surprised that he fell all the way down to us. I was like, ‘Oh man, this is crazy that we are gonna get him.’ So we got two of the best DBs on the board.”
Slay’s Eagles post-draft report card sounded a lot like my Eagles post-draft report card. So I thought I would write a mini-profile on Mitchell and DeJean. Generic? Perhaps. But not every feature can be a hit piece on a kicker’s politics.
Mitchell, unfortunately, isn’t much of a talker. I asked him when the game started to slow down for him. “Probably early in the season, you know, just from watching a lot of film,” he said. Any specific game or moment? “I wouldn’t say just one moment. It accumulated over the season.” And what did he learn? “Kind of the biggest thing was just formations, just seeing what the offense is telling from them.”
I’m supposed to serve quotes like those on a silver platter as if I just offered precious canapes of on-site reporting. Frankly, those are quotes you eat over the sink. I’m embarrassed to have uploaded a transcription of them, let alone shared them. I’m deeply sorry.
