One of the dilemmas in sports media is the asking of questions that you know aren’t going to be answered. It’s a futile exercise in due diligence, if that makes any sense.

For example, we could ask Doug Pederson 400 times about the Eagles medical staff, and he’s not going to give us any sort of meaningful answer. But if we don’t ask the question, then people say “why isn’t anybody asking him about the medical staff?” Then you waste a question on procedural base covering when you know the guy isn’t gonna say anything at all.

Jeff McLane has taken on this duty for the Eagles media corps, often getting into topics like the one above. Or, in this case, he’s asking Jim Schwartz about his personnel input as the Eagles figuratively get their defensive line from Reading Terminal Market while the linebackers are selected from Taco Bell’s $1 Cravings menu.

Today’s exchange:

McLane: “Last week in relation to the personnel decisions made at linebacker, you deferred to Howie and Doug. But clearly they would have to involve you in decisions because of your scheme, and I’m wondering, for instance, what was your involvement in the decision to release Casey Toohill as an example of how you would be involved?”

Schwartz: “Yeah nice try; I’m not touching personnel decisions.”

McLane: “So they never confer with you or…”

Schwartz: “Nah I didn’t say that, I said nice try.”

End conversation. He was smiling while saying that, so it wasn’t contentious.

What we’re searching for here is accountability, because we’re angry! Who made these lackluster linebacker decisions? Nobody is going to cop to that, nor are they going throw their players or other coaches or Howie under the bus, so it is what it is. Jeff asks the question, he gets a non-answer, and now people can’t say “why doesn’t anyone ask about the linebacker situation?

And the world keeps turning.