By Bill Bradley, contributing editor
In a bonus segment of the head coach's roundtable that has been airing on NFL Network this week, the quartet of coaches talked about the role of the media and how it affects their jobs.
Arizona Cardinals' Bruce Arians, New York Giants' Tom Coughlin, Baltimore Ravens' John Harbaugh and New York Jets' Rex Ryan discussed the importance of having a relationship with print, online and television reporters.
Coughlin told NFL Media Chief Player Health and Safety Correspondent Andrea Kremer that his outlook with the media changed dramatically eight years ago after talking one-on-one with reporters, crediting the Giants' director of media relations Pat Hanlon for altering his view.
"I was in a fistfight with the media every day and I would come across as being arrogant," Coughlin said. "At the end of that 2006 season, Hanlon said, 'Here's what you're going to have to do.' So I sat with each member of the media -- all the beat writers, all the TV people -- and I said, 'Take the gloves off. You tell me what you don't like about me and I'll tell you what I don't like about you.'
"The realization for me was that all of a sudden it came to me: I think of myself as a blue-collar guy. These people are blue-collar workers and I wasn't giving them a chance to do their job. They're never going to get all the information, but you can give them enough. You can answer a question. You don't have to keep going. But I at least met them with a great deal of respect and I extended to them the courtesy of the position that I was in, in terms of realizing they had a job to do, I have a job to do. We can work together and accomplish both goals."
