The folks who cover the New York Jets apparently are a sensitive bunch. After kicker Jay Feely praised Peter King and Adam Schefter, some of them whined about it.
And now that Jay Glazer of FOX, who cut his teeth in the Big Apple and still has plenty of sources there, finagled the news that Mark Sanchez would be the starting quarterback of the Jets this year, they apparently have whined again.
Though they’ll likely now whine about the fact that I’m calling them whiners (rather than engaging in an objective assessment of whether their whining makes them look like whiners and whether they should think twice about continuing to whine), the transcript of Jets coach Rex Ryan’s press conference and the characterization of the two questions on the topic that prompted Ryan to basically apologize to the beat writers suggests that one or more of them were pissed off that the information wasn’t fed to them via baby bottle -- and/or that a national guy who covers 31 other teams, too, scooped them.
Asked whether it was “appropriate” that the news was “leaked,” Ryan said, “That was interesting. That’s unfortunate. Obviously that’s something that I have a tough time dealing with. When I found out about it, I’m sure most of you [beat writers] were contacted by [Senior Director of Media Relations] Bruce [Speight] almost immediately after when I was told of this. To me, if any information is going to be leaked, it’s going to be leaked to our beat writers who are here everyday.”
Next, someone asked whether Sanchez’s agents were responsible for leaking the information, which prompted us to shout at the computer screen upon reading the question, “Folks, you got scooped. Let it go.”
This entire experience proves once again that, if you worry about doing your own job well instead of worrying about others who apparently are doing their jobs better, maybe you’ll do a better job, too.
UPDATE: Several sources have told us that the questions were asked only by Dan Leberfeld of Jets Confidential, and that Leberfeld also grilled Sanchez about the leak later in the day. “No other writer, before or after the news conference, mentioned Jay’s story,” one source said. “There was no animosity in the press room; it stemmed from one person -- Leberfeld.”