WaPo report may shed light on split between NFL and ESPN ‘five minutes’ restart

Dummer Hamlin’s on-field collapse during this week’s Buffalo Bills vs. Cincinnati Bengals game monday night football The game has caused a lot of media discussion.Most notably may lie in the split between ESPN and the NFL over ESPN’s on-air mention that games will resume after a five-minute warm-up period. washington post Reporting from Monday’s event by Adam Kilgore, Ben Strauss and Mark Maske.

First, here’s an overview of splitting. ESPN Game His announcer Joe Buck mentioned his five-minute warm-up period and restarts four times on that broadcast, and ESPN Deportes and Westwood One radio broadcasts also mentioned this. But NFL executive vice president Troy Vincent said on a Monday night conference call that after Hamlin’s injury, “it never crossed my mind to discuss warming up to resume play.” On Tuesday, both Buck and his company defended their mention of that five-minute warm-up, saying ESPN “is in constant communication with league and game officials,” Buck said. Rules analyst John Parry said he got the information specifically from league officials. So there was a lot of discussion about who to believe.But this director This piece provides a middle ground where both Vincent’s and ESPN’s comments may be accurate.

NFL Chief Football Administration Officer Dawn Aponte represented the league office at Peycoe Stadium. After the ambulance left the field, Bengals coach Zack He Taylor and Bills coach Sean McDermott met with umpire Sean Smith. Remotely, Executive Vice President Troy Vincent triangulated communications with Aponte, Smith, NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Shortly after the ambulance left the field, Buck told viewers that the game would resume after a five-minute warm-up period, based on information from ESPN’s official analyst John Parry. Every Monday Night Game During his game, Parry liaises with the league’s refereeing department on matters such as replays his review decisions, and Buck and his analyst Troy He relay the information to Aikman. However, this decision escalated beyond the people with whom Parry normally communicated.

That last sentence could be the key. It absolutely makes sense that Parry is in regular contact with the league’s executive department during the broadcast. . There was mention that 5 minutes is somewhat of a “standard” procedure. Notably, NPR’s “local TV station WCPO, which was broadcasting the game, noted that a five-minute warm-up period is standard protocol after most delays” (although the linked WCPO piece does not state that). is not included). Not sure if 5 minutes is specifically stated anywhere. Not in the 2022 NFL rulebook, and the debate over injury timeouts and umpire timeouts is primarily about restarting the clock, we encourage teams to wait at least 10 minutes before the game to warm up before the game. It’s like 5 minutes because you mention you have to show up. Kind of like the possible criteria for reopening (and that might be spelled out in another Official Procedural Handbook or something).

ESPN’s on-air discussion of this is mostly valid if someone in the league’s refereeing department says “five minutes” to Parry. You can criticize ESPN (and ESPN Deportes and Westwood One Radio broadcasts) if there was no real discussion between the teams. I will relay this report. But the broadcasters had every reason to believe the league’s operations department, and the information they got seemed reasonable for them to relay (especially since they were desperate for an update here). when). This is probably like a case where the person who was communicating with the broadcaster in that department exaggerated his role in the resumption here, and that is more likely than the broadcaster to believe and relay that information. This is an error for the source.

One of Buck’s little question marks was, “Like we said, they were given five minutes to get ready to go back to play. That’s the word we got from the league, and we’re going down the field. It’s a word I got from ” in the second of four ”five minute” comments on air. The second half is not always appropriate when the words “five minutes” are only mentioned to a parry by someone in the league’s refereeing department. But it’s possible that sideline reporter Lisa Salters also heard something in “5 Minutes” and relayed it to Booth. And it could even come from the refereeing department talking to team and field officials, or from a loop where someone on the team heard the first “five minutes” on the broadcast and spread it to the bystanders. .

If that happened, Vincent’s comment that “it never occurred to us” might be true. director This article suggests that the key discussion about what really happens here seems to be the call between Vincent, Aponte, Smith, and Goodell.and the coach said director Their staff did not receive the five-minute message and were told nothing until the coach decided to take the player to the locker room.

One team’s assistant coach, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said the coaching staff had not been given a timetable for the restart and admitted the head coach had taken players off the field.

“It was never officially communicated as such,” the coach wrote in a text message. I think they were trying to figure out what to do, and Sean and Zach decided to take the team into the locker room with the input of the players.”

Aponte said later in that article: He made a decision that he believed was in the best interest of Damar’s position and the condition of the players and staff of both teams. However, that “constant communication” may not have included any mention of “five minutes” or restarting play. And if it’s from a lower level official and not this executive team that was actually making the decisions (ultimately, the rules put the decision to suspend the game for the night down to Goodell. ), Vincent’s remark is that they didn’t try. It may be accurate to resume play. Of course, there are reasons to be skeptical about public comments made by NFL executives in response to criticism. director Reporting here provides a path where the comments from Buck, Parry, and Vincent are all true.

Even then, however, there are still problems with the NFL’s approach to all of this. Regardless of where it came from, the NFL deserves a lot of criticism for not immediately informing the station that it has no plans to resume, especially after the broadcast began repeatedly mentioning the Five Minutes. Yes, these high-level executives who are making the decisions were talking to each other, but there were a lot of people under them, probably some who were watching the broadcast, and they were trying to figure out what was being said there. I could have told the executives and fixed it. As publicist Gail Seidman wrote in his communication analysis on the issue, the NFL was quick to reach out to the station about a more trivial matter.

— If someone in the corner office hears play-by-play announcer Joe Buck say several times that the team will have a five-minute warm-up before play resumes (which they most likely did) , it was an error. On-site production trucks soon. Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, said the resumption of play was not considered before the game was postponed. Why didn’t you notify producer Phil Dean?

There are also some notable recent examples, such as Chris Collinsworth’s quick change of terminology for Tua Tagavailoa’s past injuries after a commercial break.

Chris and Mike Tirico clarified the statement after the commercial ended (presumably after a phone call from the NFL). (2/2) pic.twitter.com/y9G7GzBvgp

— Terrible Announcement (@awfulannounce) December 12, 2022

So, even with the best of the NFL’s best efforts, ESPN’s story is completely inaccurate, and no one in the league has provided “five minutes” information (which is unlikely). The NFL’s second best example was that the league was telling broadcasters it didn’t have the authority to make the decision, and no one with sufficient authority to fix it was later told about it. about it. Even worse is when an early fix could have been done, but was not done.

None of them look particularly good for the league. And they’re probably talking about some policy and procedure changes that should be made to prevent things like this from happening again. Perhaps some discussion is required. But neither of these options seem better than the irreconcilable schism between Vincent’s post-game comments and what he said on ESPN broadcasts, a schism that can’t be bridged by one or the other of them lying. means This report at least points a way that it may not have to be true.

[The Washington Post]