There was a little bit of a hubbub Wednesday evening when the Inquirer’s Les Bowen tweeted this:

Reaction kind of went in a few different ways.

Some of the thoughts I saw in response:

  1. fans thinking Carson was “soft,” some kind of “pussy” who wouldn’t talk to the Eagles media
  2. some of the old school media types thinking it was unfair to bar them from the press conference
  3. other folks saying that the Colts would obviously not have Eagles reporters involved in a Colts function

My take was congruent with #3. Obviously it’s Carson’s introductory press conference out in Indy, so there’s no incentive for Colts public relations to call on Les Bowen or Mike Sielski when the whole point is to unveil Wentz for a new team, not rehash stuff from his former team.

For the record, I do think Carson would benefit from putting a bow on his Eagles career, and at least addressing the fans and saying something like, “listen, I loved playing there, I’m sorry it didn’t work out, I’m ready for this new chapter, blah blah blah.” And in the grand scheme of things, letting Jeff McLane get a question in towards the end of the Zoom call, when the Colts reporters all have had their turn, wouldn’t be out of the question. I just can’t imagine Indy putting Carson in a position where he’d have to answer several questions about his former team, when the reason for the press conference is to introduce him as a Colt.

The irony here is that if we were living in a pre-COVID world, this wouldn’t be a story. Because one or more Inquirer guys would have flown to Indy to attend the press conference in person. This is what happened with Donovan McNabb’s introductory presser in Washington, and while the PR team down there passed a microphone around, it didn’t stop Eagles reporters from just shouting out some questions and attempting to get involved.

That was a different situation for a different time.

But it’s fascinating in a generational kind of way. Typically, the legacy newspaper writers and TV guys think they should get a crack at Carson, even in a non-Eagles setting. Conversely, the younger portion of the fan base, and folks comprising new media, seem content to move on to the next thing and let bygones be bygones.

Regardless, it would seem as though this is a Colts’ PR thing, and NOT something that Carson specifically requested. Some people were asserting that he’s trying to dodge the local scribes, which apparently is not true:

So we’ll have to just wait and see what happens. Maybe a local reporter out in Indy asks Carson about why his time with the Eagles turned sour. Or perhaps a national person is on the call. All we know is that Eagles media is not allowed to participate, unless they go INCOGNITO.