Blown Coverage

It's been nearly a week since the bombshell announcement of Michael Vick's return to the NFL. And while Philadelphia fans struggle to balance moral outrage with the football intrigue of a gifted athlete on the roster, I want to focus on a blown opportunity by the Eagles brass.

The news came down around 8:35 Eastern time Thursday night with ESPN's Chris Mortensen first reporting the story during the Steelers/Cardinals exhibition game. Across the state just 300 miles away, the Eagles were closing in on halftime of their preseason game with New England unaware of the shock waves reverberating around the league.

The breaking news caught everyone off guard in Philadelphia, including the Eagles Television Network, which apparently had no knowledge of the story until the wildfire was nationwide and burning through Lincoln Financial Field.

ETN finally broadcast the news 12 minutes later. At this point the crew of Kevin Reilly, Herm Edwards and Hugh Douglas was merely parroting the information reported by ESPN.

Because of the flow of the game, the preplanned halftime show and lack of information, the trio didn't get a chance to process, digest and present analysis until the second half, nearly an hour after it was announced on another network.

I don't blame the ETN broadcasters, producers or anyone on the crew, as this story was kept under major wraps and was a bomb shell dropped on them in the middle of what is already a chaotic and fast paced environment. The network did the best it could considering the circumstances.

As a broadcast veteran of 16 years, I have empathy for the broadcast team's situation, but it didn't have to be this way. The same leaders that stealthy debated and negotiated adding a convicted felon to the team, could have just as discretely worked with one or two of the key ETN personnel to help the organization lead the way on the story.

Preseason football broadcasts are always bought and paid for by the home team, meaning they control everything from the broadcasters to the content. The three former players in the booth all referred to the team as "we," as in "we need to do a better job protecting the quarterback." Unfortunatley for them they didn't get to say with confidence "we signed Michael Vick."

These aren't regular season games where the team has to work with the network crews and the organization has little or no control over the flow of information. These broadcasts are the mouthpiece of the entire franchise, complete with in-house "reporter" Dave Spadaro patrolling the sidelines.

I think it's an outrage and a disgrace that the Eagles Organization had a platform to be leaders in the Vick announcement, but instead forced ETN to play catch-up. I understand if they didn't want three part timers guessing how things unfolded and being the initial spokespersons, but there are ways around that.

The brass should have made it a priority that the Vick news was first announced by either Chairman/CEO Jeffrey Lurie or President Joe Banner DURING the game. In addition to puff piece player interviews, Spadaro should have been tossing softball questions to somebody with inside knowledge of the process.

Obviously any extra involvement from the crew are potential leaks, but vague instructions to "leave 5 minutes available for a special half-time announcement," would have given the crew a chance for proper coverage.

Can you imagine having Lurie in the booth offering a meaningful and heartfelt explanation as the third and fourth stringers continued to play? The owner would've had a captive audience while scoring major points for his candor and honesty.

Even if Mortensen broke the news before a planned in-game announcement, the crew would've been in position to read and react to the breaking news instead of having to play from behind. Advance planning would've already had the wheels in motion so Lurie and/or Banner were available to make an imediate statement detailing the particulars that would have helped stem the tidal wave of initial reaction.

Their perspective would have helped mute knee jerk reactions, while demonstrating complete control with a game plan of how things would play out over the next 24-48 hours. Instead Philadelphia fans were in the dark for a couple of hours waiting for answers.

The one time the home team had complete control over the product, they failed to use the platform to get out ahead of the story. Instead, the head honchos sat back and watched the news blow up around the country.

Even if there were a snag in the negotiations and a deal wasn't imminent, it would've been much easier for the producers and talent to replace the 5 minutes of potential coverage with a back-up plan, than to be completely caught off guard.

Angry and bewildered fans called the local talk shows, national pundits spewed speculation and everyone wondered how this all happened. Instead of squelching some of the ambiguity with an in-game announcement and taking air out of the speculative balloons, the Eagles put its broadcast at a disadvantage and left their fans hanging.

There was no normalcy in the second half as the fans and media were left rooting for the clock to run out. Everyone was more interested in hearing Andy Reid's postgame comments on Vick than watching to see if defensive end Jason Babin could beat the Pats third string double team.

The front office's lack of planning left Reid hanging out to dry as he was the first representative to address the breaking news. This was an organizational decision that effected people on many levels and it wasn't fair that the coach had to face philosophical questions along with explaining the football reasons for the move.

An in-game statement or interview would've taken some of the heat off Reid, especially since the franchise is just as concerned with Vick's personal rehabilitation as they are with his football impact.

Reid handles on the field issues and had to sell Vick's addition to ownership. In turn, ownership should've been selling the decision to the fans. Instead Reid did all the intial heavy lifting.

To make matters worse, not only did ETN not get the benefits of having a spokesman on the air during the game, the network signed off after the final gun and didn't get to carry the postgame explanations. The captive audience the Birds had for more than three hours quickly switched to Comcast SportsNet, ESPN or the NFL Network to get the skinny from the podium.

Over the next day fans finally got to hear from the principals as Vick and Lurie took the stage at Friday's news conference. The speculation, results and ultimate explanations wouldn't have been much different than what could have been offered the night before, but at least the Eagles would've been in control.

The organization could have sealed the deal of keeping things under wraps by presenting a public statement on THEIR terms. Instead they opted to play a prevent defense and were forced to react to speculation and misinformation for a longer period than was necessary.

The Eagles secondary will have lots of break downs during the season, but nothing like the blown coverage the front office had concerning Michael Vick.