No Player Interviews?

[purplefaithful]

Did you even conduct them after that embarrassing non-showing? 

[Guest]

apparently somebody hasnt been reading what they did post... :p

Tom decided not to do interviews, he didnt want to make them look at his face as the players were already suffering enough.    B)

[Guest]

i couod have interviewd, but what was the point?  They got shelled and embarrassef.  in those events, you will ask atock questions and get stock abswers.  other than training camp, fans seem to enjoy the observations rather than the actual interviews.  but, you gotta do the interviews to get close enough to fund out the personalities to get the observations

[Guest]

@Tom Moore said:
i couod have interviewd, but what was the point?  They got shelled and embarrassef.  in those events, you will ask atock questions and get stock abswers.  other than training camp, fans seem to enjoy the observations rather than the actual interviews.  but, you gotta do the interviews to get close enough to fund out the personalities to get the observations

This is why Vikefans is different than the regular media.  They actually get to know the players as people.  The media has to fulfill their quotas and will ask stupid stock questions that nobody wants to answer and nobody wants to hear.

But there wasn't much to ask after that loss unless you simply wanted to embarrass the players.  As BRob said in his interview on vikings.com, they just got whooped. 

[Guest]

I guess it depends on what VF represents and for whom. 

A non-biased fan forum? An un-official spokes piece for the Vikings organization? Something else all together? 

Agreed nobody wants the stock questions and stock answers (yawn). OTOH the fans want to have the hard questions asked and answered by the players, coaches and ownership.

Maybe I'm being naive and thats not possible right after a game loss of this magnitude. I want to believe we can rely on VF for that insight as much or more than the regular ink-stained wretches in the media. 

The call not to interview was made and done, so I am done beating the dead horse. 

[Guest]

@purplefaithful said:
I guess it depends on what VF represents and for whom. 

A non-biased fan forum? An un-official spokes piece for the Vikings organization? Something else all together? 

Agreed nobody wants the stock questions and stock answers (yawn). OTOH the fans want to have the hard questions asked and answered by the players, coaches and ownership.

Maybe I'm being naive and thats not possible right after a game loss of this magnitude. I want to believe we can rely on VF for that insight as much or more than the regular ink-stained wretches in the media. 

The call not to interview was made and done, so I am done beating the dead horse. 

I dont want to see players feet held to the fire immediately after they got their asses handed to them like that.  I dont feel that I was owed anything by them at that moment.   Yes i was pissed and wanted to know what happened,  but that moment was not the time to be looking for hard answers as I am fairly certain they werent in a position to give an honest answer anyway.   all prodding would have done was pissed them off and made it tougher to get a future interview.

[Guest]

@purplefaithful said:
I guess it depends on what VF represents and for whom. 

A non-biased fan forum? An un-official spokes piece for the Vikings organization? Something else all together? 

Agreed nobody wants the stock questions and stock answers (yawn). OTOH the fans want to have the hard questions asked and answered by the players, coaches and ownership.

Maybe I'm being naive and thats not possible right after a game loss of this magnitude. I want to believe we can rely on VF for that insight as much or more than the regular ink-stained wretches in the media. 

The call not to interview was made and done, so I am done beating the dead horse. 

I guess that is a good question, what does VF represent?  Jimmy points it out well, nothing good was going to come from those interviews.  They weren't going to have the answers.  Other than what BRob said, they were whooped.

To me, the insights Tom shares are great.  Better than the interviews IMO.  But the interviews are also very good because there is a personal touch.  And that comes from having a relationship with the players. 

I said it elsewhere, I wouldn't have watched them anyway.  The only post game interview I have watched was BRob's.  The rest can get stuffed into that large hefty bag of unwanted painful experiences labeled with a big Vikings logo.

[Guest]

@purplefaithful said:
I guess it depends on what VF represents and for whom. 

A non-biased fan forum? An un-official spokes piece for the Vikings organization? Something else all together? 

Agreed nobody wants the stock questions and stock answers (yawn). OTOH the fans want to have the hard questions asked and answered by the players, coaches and ownership.

Maybe I'm being naive and thats not possible right after a game loss of this magnitude. I want to believe we can rely on VF for that insight as much or more than the regular ink-stained wretches in the media. 

The call not to interview was made and done, so I am done beating the dead horse. 

So, I’m not shy to ask questions, so I will give you a different picture.  Not one media outlet did an individual player from the losing team.  There were 6 pooled interviews and some of those hard questions were asked.  It is not about not having the balls to do it, it was not an avenue for it, for anyone.

As VF, we really aren’t intended to be Chris Tomasson with blunt, sometimes awkward and intrusive questions.  We dont ask questions that will embarrass or piss off players, just like you wouldn’t do it when you see them out and about.

We try to bring you more of their personalities, and by gaining their trust, they openup and give insights.  But, just like every walk of life, if you burn them, they wont talk to you, they will just answer generic things in pooled press conferences. 

So, instead, I walked the locker room and watched reactions and interactions of the players.  It is how I KNOW the loss hit Zimmer, Kendricks, Robison, and Reiff the hardest.  We talked privately to a few players and those pleasanteies will further build the trust for them to talk to us next year.

The  only, truly, hard-hitting interview we’ve done is with Chris Kluwe during the heat of his lawsuit against the Vikings.  His comments hurt his case (dismissed 2 days later).  It was our most accessed interview ever (74,000 listeners, as compared to position 2, held by Rick Spielman with 46k listeners for our interview after the draft 2 years ago).  That said, thar us  really not our intended sweet spot.

So, the individual interviews you seek, just simply were not there for any media outlet, not even Vikings.com

[Guest]

Hah, @Tom Moore I had forgotten about the Kluwe interview and how that affected his case. 

[Guest]

I appreciate you engaging on it Tom...And I'm glad that over the course of the year you acknowledged the role and importance of the forum in addition to social media. 

GL this offseason, stay well. Might see you down in Eagan this August.

Chances are high given it's quicker jaunt from my front doorstep than Fankato.