Fox Sports’ Charissa Thompson Says She Made Up Sideline Reports

Cringey, contractually obligated interviews are to blame in my opinion. Coach / player is legally required to give 30 seconds to the halftime reporter/tv audience. They literally count down the seconds and spout whatever nonsense to fill the time. 99% of the time they don’t say what they are really thinking or feeling at all. Benefits no one. The reporter has to do whatever they can to sell it…or they risk getting fired. I’m positive the producers tell them something like you come back with a sound bite from the coach, I don’t care what you have to do. But no one knows the producer’s name. And we would never fucking know what they made up if they didn’t say so.

I think the NFL is getting smarter about bringing coaches’ and players’ actual, authentic personalities into it. The player intros where they say something funny (ball so hard university). Mic’d up. Coaches who are combative, funny, weird in press conferences. It is infinitely more entertaining and watchable.

People want to see what these folks are actually thinking and feeling. It’s intriguing as a human being to understand. No one wants to hear platitudes. I wish they would try to strike a balance between expecting or requiring coaches to play nice and being more like documentarians.

If I was in charge I would coach all of them on giving authentic interviews that bring the audience into the game…encourage it sternly…emphasize being themselves over all. Honest. Authentic. If they can’t…fucking don’t then. Let the audience judge them. Fake interviews are worst.

If a reporter came on at halftime and said well the coach actually growled at me and said he didn’t want to talk about it when I asked a question… I would fucking love it.