Media Day: Did You Learn Anything?

As expected, media day came and went with nary a blip on the sports landscape. A collective yawn could have emanated from the group of players as the same questions were asked … and asked … and asked ad nausea.

Sure, there were a few oddball questions, a minor security skirmish and more references to the Kardashians than should have been allowed in the prescribed session time.

The throng of international media obviously gravitated to Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning, who gave you what you expect from Peyton Manning. “They’re a talented defense. They can obviously score points.” And so on …

Obviously, I’m paraphrasing here, but you get the point. You’re not going to get anything inflammatory out of Manning. Actually, you’re not getting anything inflammatory from any of these guys.

The “remember me” hits quote from the “dead” week is about as exciting a quote as you’re going to find this week. I’m still questioning why so much was made of it.

• Was it just because it was a slow news time?

• Or, did people just want to make it into something more than the same, but much less sexy, “we need to pressure Peyton” line that sent the same message?

I suspect that it’s a combination of the two. Gregg Williams and Sean Payton aren’t going to say. “Hey, we plan on taking 45 yards of penalties on three late hits to try and injure him.” They aren’t going to say that their goal is to hurt Manning (although, by definition, isn’t that part of this tackle football game?).

They WILL talk about playing to the whistle. They WILL talk about following through on hits.

I understand the desire and need to talk about Dwight Freeney’s injury. After all, it’s the only “real” story to debate in the early-week chatter. But, let’s be real. The Colts aren’t going to definitively say anything about his injury.

You get the words “try” and “treatment” and 1,000 other descriptions of how he’s getting ready. I appreciated his ability to smile and answer the one million permutations of that question, recognizing the need of each local writer to have their voice associated with asking that question to please their editors.

In the end, we know as much as we did when the first report of Freeney’s injury came out. He might go. He might not. And now, we’ll spend five days talking about the ability of the Saints to deploy an extra receiver if he doesn’t go.

We’ll talk about DeMarcus Ware’s big effort when the Cowboys ended the Saints’ perfect season and how the Saints “won’t be fooled again.” (Do you like that?)

In the interim, I’m going to find the real stories from South Beach.

What’s Kim Kardashian wearing to the parties?