We mentioned over the weekend that it was probably good for Manti Te’o to play along with the joke when a magazine included his fake dead girlfriend in its hottest women of the year list.
The Chargers aren’t taking the same approach since drafting the Notre Dame linebacker.
According to Michael Gehlken of U-T San Diego, the Chargers have decided to not make Te’o available to the local media until mid-June, calling it an “organizational decision.”
It’s an odd approach for first-year head coach Mike McCoy.
The longer they play keep-away with Te’o, the longer the list of sideshow questions has a chance to grow.
If he rolled by the reporters who cover the Chargers on a daily basis, they would have exhausted all the controversial material already, and would be on to talking to him about whether he can play three downs, or how his adjustment to the NFL was going.
Instead, the organization is making it look like a guy who seemed to be embracing the joke in order to make it go away has now chosen to go back in hiding.