Posted in Over Under
1 comment
01/26 2011

Over/Under: The Follett-Stafford China Doll Incident

Posted by Ty Schalter.

[Ed Note: Ty writes the Lions blog The Lions in Winter, so he's pretty close to this story. He also did the creepy Photoshop, so blame him for any Stafford-is-China-Doll nightmares.]

Yesterday Detroit Lions LB Zack Follett talked to ESPN 1430 in Fresno. In the midst of talking about Matthew Stafford’s freakish ability on a Fresno radio interview, qualified it with “he’s a china doll right now.”

The Detroit-y corners of Twitter exploded over this, and within minutes WXYT’s Mike Valenti brought Follett on to clarify and/or back off of his comments. The firestorm didn’t stop there, though. A rotational outside linebacker calling out a franchise quarterback?  The national media took note, and soon stories were up at  ProFootballTalk, FanHouse, etc. Shortly after that, Follett retracted the comments on his Twitter account, and in a post on his vlog.

Today, most of the discussion is about whether Follett has the right to say what he said, whether comments were accurate—and whether this is the tip of an iceberg of Stafford-doubt, lurking underneath Allen Park, threatening to sink the Lions’ ship.

Instead, I think Follett’s comments revealed more about the instantaneous nature of the media today, the two-edged sword of Twitter, and the reality that very few people can either speak extemporaneously or play linebacker at a professional level—let alone both. First, Follett hyped up his Fresno radio appearance on Twitter. The Detroit Free Press’s Dave Birkett listened in, and posted the story minutes later. Birkett Tweeted a link to the story, and that piece—and its stunning pull quote—took off. Within hours Zack was on his vlog, alternately quoting Scripture and Twitter, defending himself from the media and the devil.

If you’ve ever watched Zack’s videos, they’re enthusiastic, entertaining, and awesome—but rarely eloquent. His use of “china doll” in that interview makes me think of George Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language. In it, Orwell says clichés are a shortcut of language, we use them instead of expressing ourselves—literally, instead of thinking. We regurgitate familiar phrases because they evoke what we’re trying to get at, and it’s easier to just spout them off than it is to write (or speak) well.

Zack Follett – Response to my comments made from zack follett on Vimeo.

Follett was speaking in a casual, jokey way to a non-Detroit audience, and without thinking he deployed the wrong cliché. To gauge his real intent, just look at the context–in the same interview, he lavished praise on Stafford’s ability and leadership—and savaged Jay Cutler on the same. This isn’t the first indicator of a locker room about to turn on its leader, it’s what happens when a guy who says he patterned his game after Terry Tate, Office Linebacker lets his mouth get ahead of his mind.

It’s episodes like these that turn “colorful” guys like Zack Follett, and Nuke LaLuche, into cagey veterans who never say anything interesting. As amazing as it is that we have this two way communication with our pro athletes, let’s remind ourselves that they’re mostly twentysomething kids who’ve spent their not-that-long lives honing their moves, not their mouth.

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Posted on January 26, 2011 at 3:46PM

 

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  1. Leo the Lion
    01/26 2011

    I think your Orwellian reference was spot on. This seems to be a case of Follett using a cliche which didn’t really express what he meant and the media running with it. It was a bad choice of words, but all he really meant was that there’s concern about Stafford’s injuries/injury history right now. Anyone who follows the Lions at all must share those concerns or, well, there’s something wrong with that person. Follett just phrased the sentiment poorly.

    That leads to the other big factor in this and that is the media. The 24-hour news cycle which requires constant “feeding” has been commented on a million times over. A guy says something like this and the entire media pounces because they gotta’ talk about something. 10 or 20 years ago, no one outside of Fresno would know what Follett said.

    With all this being said, though, I’ve grown tired lately of sports people (media, team personnel, fans, etc.) referring to these athletes as “kids.” That might still be a fair term for an 18 or 19-year old college freshman, but I don’t think it’s fair for an upper classman and certainly not a professional football player. In fact, the few players I knew in college were all big fans of the phrase “I’m a grown-ass man.” Guess what? Grown-ass men don’t always think before they speak and don’t always choose their words carefully. When someone mis-speaks, it’s not automatically because he/she is a “kid” who doesn’t know any better yet. There’s too much absolving of responsibility going on when labeling athletes as “kids.” When someone like Follett says something like “china doll,” he has to take responsibility for it. If that’s not what he meant, it’s his responsibility to explain what he DID mean. That’s what grown-ass men do when they make mistakes. They don’t blame it on “being a kid.” To his credit, Follett has handled this situation like a man. That’s not surprising as he is 23 years old. He’s been able to drive, vote, enlist in the military, and buy a beer for years (though he still has to pay “full price” for car insurance :-) . If he’s still a “kid,” at what age exactly are we expected to act like adults these days?