How far is too far in NFL interviews?

Why does his relationship with Deion Sanders matter? I can see how his family life being screwed up can have a big influence on him, but other than being an egotistical jerk what has Deion done wrong? It doesn’t matter at all that Dez got the same agent and signed with Under Armor.

Thank you for coalescing this argument. I’ve been searching for the words to explain why this level of background checking is appropriate.

Nice write up.
I was also hearing reports that some of the players at the combine were talking about his mom being a crack whore before Bryant was asked the question from Ireland.

Does the player still smoke weed? Does he hang out with childhood friends that are on the wrong side of the law?

these are quite appropriate to me

However, what was asked of Bryant is extremely inappropriate. If he wants to ask questions about Dez’s mother he could have done it in a much better way without asking if she was a prostitute. He could of asked about Dez’s family past in a trillion different ways. However, seems he wanted to be blunt about it and just ask the one he thought would get a reaction from Bryant.

I understand your investing millions of dollars and need your homework done on a certain guy, however I also feel you can do this without asking basically if your mother is a whore. There are more eloquent ways of asking about someones past. Just my opinion anyways.

Seems like there was sufficient evidence of her bad character without insulting Bryant. Now if he asked is your Mom a Ho? – would that have made the incident bigger or smaller?

What would Bryant’s mother being a whore have to do with his background personally anyway?

I mean if that was the case is it appropriate for interviewers to ask normal applicants those kind of questions for high paying jobs?

I would like to touch on the Roger Godell suspensions. One can say that his suspensions are concerning because some players are not charged with a crime. To me, I like that style. I heard on the radio, when Ben was suspended, something that makes a lot of sense. The law is a minimum standard of living.

That being said, who lives on the line? Doesn’t one what to live above the line? What is one called that walks the line (besides Jonny Cash)? They are called, “about to be arrested at any point.” There is something in the fact that Mr Godell wants the NFL to have better standard than the minimum.

The players in the NFL are professionals. I used to think that a professional was one who got paid for thier skill. This is not the only definition. A professional is a set of qualities of one’s personal behavior in work-related situations. And in the NFL, public image is a work-related situation.

This suspention of Ben is something that made me look at how I want to live. I want to live above the minimum standard, and not give the slightest perception of breaking the law.

Good write-up. Probably too brutally honest for many people’s comfort level, but you are right on. God forbid if NFL teams do some due diligence before investing millions of dollars into a guy. The locker room, team culture and reputation counts, and teams are within their right to protect those by asking awkward but relevant questions.

one other small thing i’d like to point out:

If Bryant is so upset about Ireland asking this question, how is he going to handle it when corners harass him about his mom all game?

If I were Jeff Ireland I would want an apology from Michael Silver.

What happened to the days when they would come by on their best behavior kissing the parents behinds? Now you have to procur rap sheets to keep the star athlete in check, or what? Someone does not have their priorities straight here.

Have to admit that I’m surprised at the direction of the comments here. I understand your argument that it’s crucial to have an in-depth understanding of a player’s background, given the financial risk associated with them. So, it is entirely appropriate to ask hard questions, find out about their associates, even their family, particularly if you’re convinced that any or all of them present a risk to the player. So, I’m OK with asking “has anyone in your immediate family ever been convicted of a crime?”, or even “…been arrested?”. Likewise, “Describe your family environment when you were growing up.” or “tell me who are your biggest influences.” But the “whore” question doesn’t give Ireland any useful information that couldn’t be found more easily otherwise. I’ll buy the notion that having parents who are criminals raises a serious red flag about a player’s conduct. But show me any evidence that a particular kind of crime by the parent/family member (prostitution vs. drug selling, or weapons charges, or assault, for example) has a higher correlation with later bad behavior. If there is no credible evidence that specifically being raised in the company of prostitutes is more likely to predict trouble for the player, then the question is useless, and inappropriate, IMO. It seems more likely intended to judge the player’s response to provocation than anything else. I just think Ireland was wrong.

I agree with this.

But at the same time, I can completely understand Dez Bryant’s reaction. Personally, I’m not at all overly sensitive and a question like that wouldn’t bother me at all. But still, I can understand it could piss off a lot of people, some to the point where they’d start swinging.

There’s another benefit to these questions I’ve heard about since the story broke. Sometimes you’ve got to ask questions to test these guys’ nerves. There are a lot of intangibles that go into being a great NFL player, and you can’t blame GMs for doing their best to try and find those things out BEFORE drafting. It is, after all, their job to do so.

There’s a difference between finding out about a person’s background and asking if their mother is a prostitute. If you have reason to suspect such you could very easily find it out through open records.

Do you ask every player if their mother is a prostitute? I doubt it. This was a BS question and this is some BS defending of it.

There was no reason to ask this question, yet it was still asked. What pertinent information can be gained by asking Bryant if his mother is/was a prostitute? Maybe that even if a f-ed up home environment he was still able to get him self to college and have a productive enough time there that he was on the verge of being a number 1 draft pick?

BS.

Good topic Bernie. Good discussions

I will say that this entire thing has been blown out of proportion. Ireland was an idiot, Bryant accepted his apology, the Dolphins didn’t draft him, end of story. It keeps getting deeper and deeper for no reason

Before I spend all day here, I’ll just sum my thought up like this:

The actual question had at least the potential to provide valuable insight into Bryant’s mental stability – negative or even positive.

As to the right to ask that personal of a question:

In general I would err on the side of privacy and say no, they shouldn’t be able to ask such questions without specific reasons. Asking a list of like questions to everyone would likely be harassment.

Specific to this case, it seems like there were specific reasons that led to this question being asked to Dez Bryant in particular. Poverty and race were not those reasons. Some combination of specific comments and known family criminal history gave rise to a situation where the question was asked. Here, I would side with the team. I think they have a right to vet players whom are to be awarded massive contracts with few (if any) reliable references that can vouch for their character. Even if that means they have to ask specific and uncomfortable questions.

Well, to be honest my opinion is probably in the minority…but if it’s true that Bryant offered up that his dad was a ‘pimp,’ and his mom ‘worked for him,’ I don’t think it’s out of bounds to ask that as a followup question. I mean, what did Bryant think most people would assume from that kind of statement?

Bryant went there first, he could have just said, rather ambiguously, that his dad had a ‘criminal past’ and so did his mother…and left it at that. If Ireland probed further then I would think he’s out of bounds b/c that kind of vague answer by Bryant is more than indicative that he doesn’t care to discuss it further…but offering up specifics such as ‘my dad was a PIMP and my mom worked for him’ , well, that is enough unsolicited specific information that I can not fault Ireland from thinking what he did and asking more specific questions.

whenever I look at the top part that says

My Mom is not a prostitute. She is a nice lady.

I think of

Tell me where else on earth someone can be kicked out of college and then still walk into a job on the first day and cash a check that is eight numbers long

Kicked out of college =/= year-long suspension

Wow! 280 comments arguing about the appropriateness of a question we do not know how was asked. It’s impossible to find any agreement on this issue because everyone can make up their own context of the situation. Therefore, I will disagree with everything said here and say that the team has no right to reject a player because his mother was/is a prostitute, and it was a good and appropriate question to get a full measure of this man.

Off topic, I know, but did any other MMA fans just watch Shogun crush Machida in round 1? It was awesome.