Tennessee Titans shielding Marcus Mariota from Tampa Bay media

Update: After the media's collective complaints, the Titans have now changed their minds and are making Mariota available to deliver some meaningless quotes.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers press corps is going to have to get to Sunday without getting any juicy quotes from Marcus Mariota. No, that's not because Mariota's public presentation is incredibly bland and he never says anything interesting to the press. Well, at least that's not the only reason: the Titans are refusing to make him available for a conference call with Bucs media, something every Tampa Bay beat writer is currently tweeting about. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are making Jameis Winston available to the Titans media, though.

For those who don't know how this works, local media  get a conference call with the opposing team's head coach and one or two players (often the quarterback) ahead of any regular season or playoff game. They'll get some predictable and managed quotes about their team's best players and what the opponent's especially scared of for their game previews, and then those quotes will never be brought up again because they're generally not actually interesting.

That said, the Titans restricting media access is pretty silly. What's the harm in a fifteen-minute conference call with Tampa Bay media? These beat writers aren't going to be super confrontational (not that there's anything to be confrontational about) and talking to the media is part of the man's job -- and has been, ever since he started at Oregon. Just let him talk to the media, and give everyone some useless quotes they can incorporate in their mandatory game previews.