
As by now you surely know by now,
especially if you're following us on Twitter as we live tweet Rams practices, press conferences and media events (HINT HINT), TPL are all over the various bits and bobs the NFL are running around London in the build up to this weeks' International Series clash. You'd be mistaken if you thought that all the events are being organised just by the NFL or NFL UK - and you'd be equally mistaken if you assumed that the events would only feature teams involved with the International Series (which I'll generously extend to include Fred Taylor, with the Jaguars starting their four-year residency next season). While I've been dutifully reporting on every single thing the Rams have done over the two days since they landed (well, not quite) in north-west London, as Ram-o-phile Phil was coming down from Nottingham to cover his beloved St Louis team in the flesh (which you'll know if you follow us on Twitter HINT HINT HINT), I instead today found myself on the absolute other side of the Capital this afternoon, in the newly-built Westfield Stratford City shopping centre (the one they built because of that little 'Olympics' thing that went on a few months ago which no-one really paid attention to).
"But Gur (and/or Fred, if you're that-way inclined)", I hear you ask (yes, I bugged your laptop), "why on Earth would you do such a thing?" Well, hypothetical reader, it was because those wonderful guys and gals at New Era decided that there was no better time than the present to piggy-back on the pre-Wembley hype and cash in on London's football fever by teaming up with JD Sports to bring over three members of the Buffalo Bills to talk with the media and have a good ol' fashion sign-and-greet with the fans.
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As you can see, our followers were divided over the Bills' boys look |
However, as the hour delegated for media access was scheduled at the same time that, 36 miles away on the other side of London (that's road distance, not as-the-crow-flies), there was the media access to the Rams players and coaches in a top-class training facility with fully-equipped media room, it was perhaps less than surprising that most of the sports media chose to attend the Rams' session London Colney. However, there was still plenty of reporters in line ahead of me waiting to interview the Bills' triumvirate of Stevie Johnson, Kelvin Sheppard and Marcell Dareus. Almost every single one of them, however, this being a New Era event, was from a fashion website or 'lifestyle magazine'. I must admit, I grew concerned that we would be told the media access portion of the day would be over before I had time to ask my questions, and was almost indignant that I, a widely respected* NFL analyst**, may not have access to these three players, while the Bills themselves looked utterly bored as they answered generic questions that could be applied to any sport ("when did you first know you wanted to play in the NFL?"), or, worse still, suggested that the interviewer didn't even know who they were speaking to, or why they were famous ("so... what is your favourite range of New Era caps, the fitted or the snapbacks?"). With the exception of two interviewers who (shock!) knew the game of football and (double shock!) actually knew who they were interviewing, I don't think the Buffalo players were posed an actual question about football. At last, though, my time had come. I marched purposefully up to the table, laid down my trusty dictaphone before them (which, by the way, can be seen in
this NFLUK video, pointed at the mouths of Chris Long and Cortland Finnegan - that's right, my equipment has more celebrity than I do), and fired away with my first question...
*in my house **in the most utterly loose and generous sense of the word