KRAVITZ: Why should NFL players have to dress and undress in front of the media? (2024)

Let me start off this way: I hate locker rooms, or, as in the case of baseball, clubhouses. Even though I spend a decent portion of my professional life in those places, often standing around while grown men moisturize, primp, pamper and then dress, I despise those places, and the vast majority of people in the media business would say precisely the same thing.

Male media members, female media members, we feel like unwelcome interlopers, like it's their private tree house and we're not included in the club.

I bring this up because the NFL Network recently did a locker room interview with Adam Jones, during which you could easily see a host of naked men strolling past in the background. Understand, this is a very rare happenstance; I can't recall a similar circ*mstance in TV, either live or taped, except for the time when Pat McAfee's unfortunate locker room selfie caught Andrew Luck in the background in a state of undress. (Yeah, that went over well.)

This inspired Andrew Whitworth, a Bengals player and union leader, to speak loudly earlier this week about the invasion of private space, and the importance of retro-fitting locker rooms so that players might have a private place to towel off and then put on their clothes.

I agree wholeheartedly with him. The NFL is a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. Spend some money, give the players a changing room and then let them walk into the locker room, fully dressed, where they can do their interviews. It would be a bit of an architectural challenge, especially in some of the older stadiums where the visiting locker room itself is small and downright Spartan. But there is no reason – none – why players should be forced to stroll around half (or fully) naked in front of reporters and cameras. It's a matter of privacy, and it's a matter of decency.

Let me take you inside the locker room to tell you how it actually works:

After a football game, there is a 10-minute-long cooling off period. This time is usually used for the coach to issue post-game comments, or for players to celebrate or curse their fate, or for players to engage in prayer, as many do. Some use that time to shower and dress rather quickly.

Most, based on my experience, take their time, and are still going to and from the showers as the media arrives after that 10-minute cooling off period.

Most of us go to the interview room first. Every team handles it differently, but the Colts always have Andrew Luck speak to the media first. Very often, he's still in uniform or partially in uniform, but this is the way he prefers it, and as a guy who used to live on deadline, I can tell you the deadline reporters appreciate his expediency. It's something Peyton Manning used to do as well.

A few minutes later, Chuck Pagano comes to the interview room and addresses the media. At this point, some of us stay to talk with Pagano and some, knowing the 10-minute cooling off period is almost over, make our way to the locker room. In the case of Sunday night, I went directly to the locker room, for two reasons: One, the Colts, and all NFL teams, transcribe the Luck and Pagano interviews and two, I knew I needed to talk to Colt Anderson and Griff Whalen, and had no idea how long those two might remain in the locker room. Couldn't take the chance of missing them, basically, and I didn't. (I have to say I felt lousy talking to those two guys; they get summarily ignored all season, but when they screw up, we're there to ask all the tough questions. But hey, it comes with the territory, for both parties, right?)

When it comes time to do interviews, we generally wait until a player is fully dressed, or – and I hate this – we will stand there like dolts, feeling diminished and dehumanized – while a player moisturizes and dresses and prepare for life after the game. It's this weird, uncomfortable Kabuki dance. Reggie Wayne? He was the worst – the best and the worst. He was always the last one out of the shower. Then he'd stand at his locker, his back to the world, moisturizing and doing all sorts of things while we stood there for 10-15 minutes. Now, Wayne was and remains one of the coolest guys on the planet, so you could BS and joke with him while he was taking care of business, knowing he's as uncomfortable with this ridiculous situation as we are standing around and waiting. With others, you let them dress in peace, give them their space and then start asking questions once they are fully dressed.

But it's really dumb, very uncomfortable and leaves you feeling diminished as a semi-accomplished adult. Seriously, I've spent about five percent of my adult life standing around waiting for grown men to get dressed. What other job has this sort of goofy requirement?

The whole time, I feel terrible for the athlete. Really, I do. They should have a space where they can dress and primp without the world loitering at their locker. But the unfortunate reality is, if you want a guy like Wayne – who was, without question, one of the great interviews in professional sports – you waited and waited and swallowed your pride so that you might cull some nuggets of wisdom you will use in your column or newscast.

I thought Donte Moncrief's hat captured the essence of the way I feel when I'm in a locker room waiting for guys to dress.

"DOPE."

Yep, that about sums it up.

Whitworth wasn't saying the media and cameras shouldn't be there. Not at all. Nor was he saying women shouldn't be there, and if you want to argue that point, please use a time machine and argue that point with someone living in 1975. That war has been fought and won and equal access is and must remain the rule. As for the cameras, they are deeply important. TV pays for the NFL, and as fans, you want post-game reaction from guys. They belong in there as much if not more than the writers like me. And understand, camera people are trained to make sure they don't end up with naked men in the background of their shots. They shoot very tight. They shoot the player right at his locker, focusing in on his face.

How often have you seen things like the NFL Network deal happen? Honestly, I can't ever remember a similar circ*mstance. Could be wrong; there's no way of checking, but I don't recall this kind of issue ever having come up before.

All Whitworth wants is some place where he can have some privacy, where he doesn't have to walk from the shower to his locker stall without worrying that a live camera might inadvertently espy him naked in the background – as was the case with the NFL Network's flub.

Now, I've had a lot of people ask a very smart question. "Why don't they just bring all the players to the interview room?"

Let me try to explain.

First, that's essentially what they do in college. Very few provide locker room access. In college, the sports information directors will make several players available and they congregate around a large room and we get our interviews there. It's not the best set of circ*mstances for a journalist – there's no hope of getting a player alone and everything is mass journalism, with everybody getting the same material – but that's the way the game is played in college, and there's nothing much we can do about it. Anyway, they're young adults; the rules probably should be different for them.

In the pros, it's different. First, in a given game, there might be six, seven players you want to talk to. It's not feasible to herd them all into an undersized media interview room. And we all want six or seven different players. The night of the New England game, I wanted Whalen, Anderson, Pat McAfee, Kendall Langford and whoever else might be hanging around. It's just as simple to do it the way we all do it:

"Hey, Player X, you have a minute?"

"Sure, let me just throw a shirt on in case the cameras come by."

"Sure. Just let me know when you're ready to roll."

Locker room access is truly invaluable, especially to somebody in my position. It gives me the chance to go up to a player like, say, Greg Toler, and ask him an Xs and Os question that will make my column sound smarter. It allows me to go up to players who I trust, and who trust me, and ask them a question or two off the record, just for my information and background. And there's a lot to be said about just standing there and observing. Several of us noticed that after the Tennessee game, Luck could barely dress himself after taking several hard hits. As a reader or viewer, you want to be taken inside the locker room, and we are your conduits, to whatever extent that's possible.

Again, I'm not sensing that Whitworth wants to rid the locker room of media; maybe, in his heart of hearts, he does, and he wouldn't be alone, but that's downright unrealistic.

It's just a matter of giving players a place to dress in peace, without worrying that a wayward camera that happens to be focused on Player X doesn't catch him dropping his towel to put on his underwear. It's just a matter of building an additional room. Shoot, the Colts spent millions on a small golf course at the West 56th Street facility; they could surely afford to build a changing room, right?

Now, I should mention, the NFL rule exists that a player should dress at his locker, and that rule is in place so that everyone in the media will have access to that player at some point after the game. That rule is very important and necessary, or players – well, some players – would scoot out the door.

If the NFL was to build a changing room, it should become mandatory that a player, fully dressed, sit at his locker for a reasonable period of time, just in case his presence is required by the media. It would be a disaster if guys dressed in a separate room and then just rolled out the back door without speaking with anybody. NFL writers, and all writers, have spent too much time fighting for access over the years for players to take advantage of the situation and suddenly start avoiding the media – as Anderson and Whalen probably could have, but thankfully did not.

But I think we're all professionals here, or most of us. And I believe there's an element of mutual respect here, even if some players despise our presence (but I prefer to think that most understand we have a job to do and respect that). I don't want to watch grown men undress and then dress any more than they want to stand naked before me, or any reporter, male or female.

I hope the NFL listens closely to Whitworth after the NFL Network mistake. We can all get what we want in a mutually respectful way. I can get my interviews, and adult males can shower and dress while enjoying an element of privacy. We can make this work, can't we?