'It is what it is'

But Sapp not the Media Day soundbite many expected

SAN DIEGO -- This is the day that sooner or later just had to happen. The moment that seemed almost predestined from the first time someone tried to sneak a microphone past his mouth.

It was Warren Sapp on Super Bowl Media Day, God's perfect marriage of hype, hubris and hot air.

I got there early, not wanting to miss a single syllable, and elbowed my way into prime note-taking position. The crowd was sizable, the level of expectation almost palpable.

Oh, what a wild ride it promised to be. Where would we go? What would we hear? After all, this is the trash-talker's Olympics. The induction ceremony for the Hall of Fame of Hype. Sapp had been training and prepping for this very stage for years now. This is why you do all those interviews and issue all those quips, quotes and snotty comebacks season after season.

Because one day, if you're good enough and chatty enough, by golly it all leads to right here, right now, making the most of this, your defining hour before our poised pens, cameras and recorders.

• King: Bucs' defense rests its case • Banks: Bucs' Johnson validated • Banks: No. 1 D the difference • Donovan: Raiders too slow • Donovan: Controversy burns Raiders • Statitudes: Havenots can have faith • Statitudes: By The Numbers • Mandel: Broadcast took its time • George: Super Bowl ads fun again

Well, make that 45 minutes or so. Sapp was 20 minutes late, strolling up to his Media Day platform at 8:50 a.m. for our scheduled 8:30 a.m. gabfest. No matter, we knew he'd make it up to us, dropping into the hurry-up offense of interviewing and filling up our notebooks in no time.

No way would he cheat us on this day. If nothing else, Sapp is a man of his word(s).

But a funny thing happened on the way to this global forum. Sapp's mouth lost its mojo. He was dull. He was boring. He was nondescript. He talked a lot, but said little. It was as if he knew this was his big moment, and the moment proved bigger than him.

"It's almost like a kid in a candy store," said the Bucs veteran defensive lineman, when asked for his first-time Super Bowl impressions. "It really is what it is. A Super Bowl."

Gee, thanks for that nugget. And this one, too: "This is crazy. They talk about the 500,000 credentials that go around the world and different places, but it is what it is. It's the Super Bowl. Wow. I'm just in awe."

Here's one more keeper, and see if you can spot the emerging theme of the day for Sapp: "There's no bigger stage and I'm really looking forward to it, the whole week. It's just what it is. I'm enjoying myself."

If you guessed the inane "it is what it is" refrain, we have a winner.

We in the communications business can take a lot of things on Super Bowl Media Day: the long lines, pack journalism mentality and annoying fringe types with press passes and hand-held video cams. But there is one ultimate media-day sin, and that's when our go-to guys make us forget why we went to them in the first place.

I kept standing there listening to Sapp, watching the minutes tick by, waiting for the announcement to come over the Qualcomm Stadium loudspeakers: "Attention, will the party that shanghaied the real Warren Sapp kindly return him to his platform? Thank you."

Don't get me wrong. I don't usually enjoy Sapp's shtick. In fact, most times I find him to be too much the bully and way too captivated by his carefully cultivated bad-ass persona. But if you can't count on Warren Sapp to enter spouting bombast on Media Day at the Super Bowl, well, what's next, Al Davis turning good company man at the league's next owners meeting?

Lord knows we tried Tuesday. We asked Sapp about everything but the North Korean nuclear threat, but nothing much resonated. At times he did look awed, almost out of his element among the throngs of reporters. Which is crazy, because throngs of reporters first started congregating at the Super Bowl's Media Day precisely because guys like Sapp supplied as much good copy as the NFL does free food and drink.

Who knows? Maybe Sapp simply double-clutched on this day of days. Maybe the media spectacle was all too much for him. Maybe he tried to light a conversational spark, but it just never caught. All I know is that I spent about 40 minutes listening to Sapp's interview session and nothing memorable came out of it. He was just another talking head, just another player behind a microphone, just another guy who got shouted down by a Don King impersonator working for FOX.

"That's why it's not The Best Damn Sports Show," quipped Sapp, in his one good line of the day. "Who let him in?"

Sapp, the big fish that he is, wouldn't even take the bait when he was peppered with questions about Raiders guard Frank Middleton, his former Bucs teammate, looming Super Bowl opponent and fellow quotemeister.

"Yeah, Frank is a space-eater," said Sapp of his fellow big man. "[But] yeah, the Super Bowl's bigger than Frank, too."

I won't even bore you with Sapp's blah-blah-blah responses when asked about his celebrated midseason run-in with Packers head coach Mike Sherman. Suffice it to say they were self-aggrandizing, self-exculpatory and self-inflating. And those were the good parts.

Sapp was at his most unconvincing on Tuesday when he tried to turn inspirational, rhapsodizing about his love of country when asked about being an example to our youth.

"I think the thing about America is, it's so beautiful," Sapp said. "It's so beautiful. You can do anything, an 18-year-old driving a Hummer. You can do anything in this country. It is just what it is."

Funny, but I don't remember that verse in the song. Must be after the spacious skies and amber waves of grain part.

And though he said at one point that he was having "a blast," he seemed to be in the distinct minority in our little section of the world.

"I don't think you can put it into words," he said of the Super Bowl experience. "It's almost like a utopia, the perfect place. That's the only way to describe it, man, that you can enjoy yourself this much in a span of a half hour."

Speak for yourself, Warren. And make it more quotable.

"I've been in the spotlight for about five or six years, and I've handled it pretty well I think," Sapp said. "But I've done it all, and this is the culmination of my career right here, I think, sitting here today."

Which makes Sunday's game a bit anticlimatic, huh?

All in all, the Bucs better hope Sapp plays a better game on Sunday than he talked on Tuesday. Otherwise, I'll take the Raiders and give the points.

Truth be known, what might be the real reason for Sapp's dearth of good quotes finally occurred to me late on Media Day, after I already invested most of my time priming a dry pump at his booth.

For the past two months or so, Sapp's game has been pretty silent on the field as well. His sack drought in the season's second half was the longest of his career since his rookie year of 1995. If there has been one constant in Sapp's eight-year NFL tenure, it's that his mouth operates in direct proportion to his on-field production. The more sacks he has, the more smack he talks.

In other words, Sapp is getting by mostly on rep.

On Tuesday's Media Day at the Super Bowl, we were prepared to let him do it again. Shoot, we were even encouraging it.

But in the end, he talked us out of it.

Don Banks covers pro football for CNNSI.com.

 

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