Tim Benz: Steelers players miss the mark by blaming the media for Drew Brees controversy - TribLIVE

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A lot of blame can be thrown around for a lot of different issues these days.

There’s no shortage of it.

A heaping tablespoon can be served to media members (and outlets) regarding coverage and commentary surrounding the covid-19 pandemic and civil unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minnesota.

I’m not going to act like I’ve been immune to criticism.

But “the media” at large is a nebulous, faceless target. Blaming it for the nation’s current state of upheaval is weak.

A few Steelers were guilty of that last week. Appearing on 93.7 The Fan, offensive tackle Al Villanueva was asked about Drew Brees’ comments surrounding potential player protests of the national anthem.

When the New Orleans Saints quarterback said he couldn’t support such actions, he was met with backlash from many players of color on his own team and elsewhere.

Important to note, a significant chunk of that blowback toward Brees was generated from players on their social media accounts. That’s when organized publications picked up on tweets and posts from the likes of Michael Thomas, Malcolm Jenkins, Alvin Kamara, Emmanuel Sanders and even LeBron James. Those opinions were then circulated en masse by social media subscribers and, eventually, various news organizations.

That’s not the media generating a story. That’s the media assembling to cover one.

Villanueva doesn’t see it that way.

“I’m going to blame it on the media,” Villanueva said. “Because the media is always trying to hyperfocus things. Pit people against each other. Change narratives. The media is unbelievably divisive right now.”

Is the media “divisive” right now? Sure.

But aside from that, Villanueva is off base regarding Brees’ situation. Reaction to Brees’ remarks wasn’t an example of reporters prodding for a quote or mining for a story. They were posted right in front of our eyeballs. These were comments offered up by the athletes themselves.

And Brees’ quotes were made of his own volition clearly, definitively, and published by Yahoo Finance with the accompanying video of the statements. So it’s hard to argue that the quotes were manipulated.

When pressed on that aspect of the story, Villanueva and Maurkice Pouncey — who was also on the call — shifted blame to their belief that the media maneuvered the narrative of events regarding Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protest back in 2016. It became far more of a debate about patriotism than it was about police brutality.

“Don’t change the narrative again,” Pouncey said. “Changing the narrative again is not going to go right for anybody.”

Again, though, that dialogue was nothing more than a reflection of society’s split opinions on the whole.

And did the media shift that attention from the topic of police brutality? Or did President Trump when he trashed the NFL and its protesting players during a 2017 rally in Alabama? Or did Kaepernick by conflating the anthem with his message about police brutality in the first place?

As Villanueva pointed out during the interview, he’s got a particular sensitivity to that topic after he was front and center the last time the anthem controversy exploded.

By standing outside the tunnel before a 2017 game in Chicago while the rest of his Steelers teammates stayed back during the Star Spangled Banner, Villanueva was in the vortex of what that statement meant and how it was executed.

“The media … words were taken out of context. They were taken out of context the last I spoke about this issue. So I will never speak on this issue again,” Villanueva declared.

I sympathize with Villanueva on that front, especially given the position he was in with his status as an army veteran. That’s not what’s happening here, though. Brees’ critics bypassed the media and shaped the discussion on their own.

There’s a difference between “social media” and “the media.” Even if it’s been significantly blurred over the past decade or so.

I’ve got some bad news for Villanueva. With locker room access likely limited for the foreseeable future, the line between the two is about to get extremely fuzzy, as those of us in our business will need to rely on what players say via their own platforms for quotes more than ever.

Expressing depth of what a quote means is tough enough during a five-minute conversation at a locker. But it’s a heckuvalot easier to find that nuance face-to-face than it is to do with a few hundred characters and a fire emoji or a cheeky GIF of some sort.

Another option Villanueva may prefer is that the media just avoid talking about this topic all together. Although it seems like many athletes would rather have the conversation as opposed to burying it.

Until there’s an actual game to be played somewhere in the United States sometime in the near future, I’m not sure what choice we have.

I’d hope that even Villanueva understands the media isn’t at fault for that. I would do anything to start writing about wins and losses again as opposed to pandemics and protests.

Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via Twitter. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.

Categories: Sports | Steelers/NFL | Breakfast With Benz