Earlier in the week, the National Football League held a press conference with Commissioner Roger Goodell, which was moderated by NFL on CBS reporter Tracy Wolfson. Unlike years past, media members needed a special invite to have access to the conversation, a decision that has garnered criticism and raised concerns about objective questioning. There have been journalists covering the league who have posed questions in years past about issues NBC Sports and ProFootballTalk reporter Mike Florio affirmed the league did not want to discuss. Florio was first to reveal the news that the league transformed the event to require an innovation and moved it to Monday, a day where some media members are still traveling to Las Vegas, Nev.
WQAM morning show host Joe Rose interviewed Florio on his program Friday morning after Florio remained awake the entire night. On Friday alone, Florio shared that he has 20 interviews he needs to do and ascertained that he would find a way to power through to be on Rose’s show. Throughout the week, Rose has been watching Florio on PFT Live and was curious to know how far he would go with the change to the Super Bowl week press conference.
“It’s amazing after 23 years of doing this and 23 years of them trying to figure out how to deal with me that they’ve still yet to even begin to understand that the fundamental truth is this,” Florio said. “When I practiced law, this was the same thing, and a friend of mine would counsel lawyers that would fight with me that the worst thing you can do is piss me off because it makes me more determined to do whatever needs to be done.”
Although undertones of an adversarial relationship can be evinced, Florio affirmed that he is not trying to be malicious in any way. When he was practicing law regularly, part of his job was to read through deposition transcripts, something he divulged as an arduous task.
After the limitations were placed on the press conference, Florio decided to read the entire 408-page document of Roger Goodell’s testimony in the lawsuit in which the NFL was trying to force insurance companies to pay for the concussion settlement. From there, he further studied topics and posted stories with more to come shortly thereafter. At the moment, the settlement is reportedly worth more than $1 billion and continuing to grow.
“They’ve made me focused and they’ve made me determined to put my finger on the issues that they don’t want to talk about,” Florio explained, “and they’re a lot of issues out there they don’t want to talk about.”
Rose was not present on Media Row at the Super Bowl this year, but he has interviewed various guests situated in Las Vegas about the game. Florio conveyed that there are two distinctive aspects of casinos in the area – that they smell like cigarettes and do not have clocks – before Rose hypothesized what his experience would have been like had he made the trip.
“I was just thinking [that] I told these guys, ‘Do you miss it?,’ and I go, ‘I would have been hung over the whole time running with guys and going and feeling like I have to see everything,’” Rose said, “and probably what you’re doing, ‘I’ll get sleep when I get back home.’”
As he continued the interview, Rose lauded the strong guest list on PFT Live throughout the week, something Florio attributed to coordinating producer Matt Casey. One of his most memorable interviews throughout the week was Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, someone who he was surprised was available. Allen was being presented by Subway, leading Florio to surmise that he was receiving substantial remuneration in the deal. Being at Media Row though, media professionals need to be prepared to adapt because of the challenges in remaining on schedule.
“It’s funny because one guy who was tentatively on the list was Lawrence Taylor – the original LT – and Chris [Simms] knows him,” Florio said. “Chris Simms knows him since he was a little kid because he played with Phil [Simms]. As soon as Chris saw it, he said, ‘There’s no way he’s showing up at 9:15 a.m. [At] 9:15 p.m., maybe; there’s no way he’s going to be here at 9:15 a.m. Of course he didn’t show up.”
