Super Bowl media days, where stupid questions annually gather

PHOENIX — Eagles tight end Grant Calcaterra was doing his part, following standard Super Bowl media day protocols, wandering around amiably answering questions … Well, most of them.

“This guy asked — do you think Jason Kelce ever pinned his brother Travis down and farted on him?”

So, yes, there are such things as stupid questions, and Super Bowl media days are where they seem to annually gather.

Was this questioner dressed like a tree or a can of deodorant? Was it Barrel Boy? (The guy representing a Phoenix country music radio station by wearing a cowboy hat and a barrel and not much else.) Was it the kid from Nickelodeon?

“No, he was dressed like you,” Calcaterra said.

Just a common wrinkled ink-stained wretch, reducing the biggest mutual storyline of this Eagles-Chiefs matchup, two All-Pro brothers facing off in the nation’s largest sporting event, to a fart joke.

Was that Monday night’s stupidest question? Now there’s a competition.

“A must-win game?” someone asked Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni.

“Yeah,” Sirianni said, straight-faced.

“Thank you,” said the satisfied customer, who may have been asking it as a gag question. Figuring out which stupid questions are merely making fun of stupid questions is part of this, too.

Someone else asked: Which player on his own team would Sirianni not let his daughter date?

“My daughter is 5 years old,” Sirianni said.

» READ MORE: Eagles coach Nick Sirianni’s approach paid off in a Super Bowl run: ‘I’m not going to be someone I’m not’

The week is young, but no question yet matches the exchange a Minneapolis TV reporter had with then-Eagles receiver Alshon Jeffery before the 2018 Super Bowl. A classic of the genre.

“Did you see the temperature for game day on Sunday?”

“We’re playing indoors,” Jeffery said.

“If you were outside, though, how would that affect it?”

“I don’t think the Super Bowl would be here.”

Mind you, this was after the same man had asked Jeffery how much fun this all was and how much he was enjoying the experience.

“Honestly, I think this [stuff] is terrible,” Jeffery said. “All this. I think we could have stayed in Philly and come on Friday or Saturday.”

Alshon Jeffery was not a stupid man — and he had a pretty huge touchdown catch in that Super Bowl. A couple of points, though. The National Football League, intent on being the actual greatest show on earth, figured out how to turn a press conference into a TV show, with thousands of paying customers in attendance. It’s no longer Media Day — it’s Opening Night powered by Fast Twitch — held on the floor of the arena normally used by the Phoenix Suns. A stage was set up … all the Eagles entered to the raised stage, some holding up their own cell phone cameras.

Ten of the Eagles then went to personal podiums set up on the arena floor, an Eagles hat on each chair if they chose to wear it. The rest wandered around for most of an hour. A couple were game to play pin the tail on the donkey, blindfold and all, getting spun around first.

It was hard to hear the question put to Chiefs coach Andy Reid, but you got the gist of it by Reid’s answer: “That’s a good question, I take a lot of Geritol.”

Within the craziness, work can, in fact, get done. For beat reporters covering a Super Bowl team, it’s a big deal that all the assistant coaches are available for the hour. One-on-one interviews with players are plentiful. General manager Howie Roseman talked. Owner Jeffrey Lurie was there. Writing about a Chiefs player with Philly ties? No problem, he’s happy to talk.

Maybe the most endearing quality of the evening is the byplay with all the international media. The Super Bowl is a global event and the NFL is savvy in expanding its reach. (There’s a reason Aussie left tackle Jordan Mailata was on one of those 10 Eagles mini-podiums, beyond his terrific season and All-Pro personality.)

A reporter from Jordan asked Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes if he’d ever been to the Middle East. Mahomes said he hadn’t yet.

“But I would love to get out there,” Mahomes said. “I want to travel the world.”

Maybe the goofiness of this night translates overseas. A reporter from Munich joked with Mailata, asking if he’d read from a piece of paper for German television.

“No, mate, I’m not going to do that,” Mailata said, smiling as he read what was on the piece of paper, “a script” for this Super Bowl LVII.

“I got a different script,” Mailata joked.

This German one had him losing the Super Bowl but dating Rihanna. The German crew was going player-to-player asking what they thought of that and a couple of other conjured-up plot lines. (They’re lucky Alshon Jeffery is retired.)

“Hey, Japan!” Mailata said, moving on to the next camera. “Enjoy the Super Bowl!”

Mailata signed off each international exchange with the same line, deepening his voice.

“Always remember, go Birds.”