Hold That Thought, Rookie; in the NFL, Saying What You Really Think Is Dangerous

Patrick Mahomes was being honest. That was his first rookie mistake. 

When asked a question about the challenge of learning Andy Reid's offense during Chiefs rookie camp, Mahomes foolishly offered a candid, thoughtful response.

First, Mahomes talked about verbiage, the Mike linebacker and all of that soothing insider technobabble we all nod knowingly about as it sails over our heads. But at the end of a lengthy response, he committed the verbal equivalent of throwing a lame duck over the middle of the field. Mahomes admitted, per the Chiefs official site, that a portion of the process "was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be."

Foolish rookie! By admitting human frailty and minor surprise about how difficult portions of his new job were to master, Mahomes created a miniature media maelstrom.

Mahomes' quote was promptly stripped of context, boiled down to its tasty marrow and plated for the football-starved public. At best, the little stump of a quote became a springboard for musings about NFL readiness or the nature of the Air Raid offense Mahomes ran at Texas Tech.

At worst, it was custom-tailored for idle speculation on Twitter or in comments sections: Is Mahomes hopelessly unprepared? Naive? Unrealistic? Immature? Is he another Bryce Petty, furrowing his brow in confusion at a Madden video game menu?

It's all nonsense, of course. Mahomes was meandering to the conclusion of a series of long explanations when he uttered the money quote. It was the very definition of an afterthought, repurposed as a meaningful insight.

Let Mahomes' moment of verbal weakness be a lesson to all rookies this time of year. Say nothing, younglings, because there is little football to talk about right now, so everything you say will be blown far out of proportion.

Be as bland as possible to reporters. Tweet to nobody. Respond to no remarks. Heck, don't even trust your new teammates.

At least Mahomes was granted the dignity of inserting his own foot in his mouth. New Giants quarterback Davis Webb made the mistake of being polite to Eli Manning during a private phone call. Another rookie blunder.

"I just wanted to welcome him to the team, let him know if he has any questions or needs anything in the next few days, I was here for him," Manning said, per Michael Eisen of the Giants website. "He responded to that with 'Yes, sir.' I told him we were off to a bad start. Please to not refer to me as sir. I appreciate the manners, but we're teammates.

"I was always taught the same thing. Anyone older than me, I have to call them 'sir.' But hopefully we straightened that out."

David J. Phillip/Associated Press

Phew. Good think Manning nipped that controversy in the bud by widely publicizing it.

The sheer power of Manning's passive aggressiveness in these statements caused my computer to reboot several times out of spite. I want to be treated just like one of the guys, so be mindful of how you address me. Manning knows how the deadpan media delivery system works, so he knows just what he lobbed at his heir apparent. Davis Webb 'Off to a Bad Start' with Eli Manning? It's hard to find a juicier NFL headline in May.

Webb meets the press at Giants rookie camp later this week, and his relationship with Manning will overshadow anything he does or doesn't do on the field. Tread carefully, rookie. Only two-time Super Bowl champions can share the details of private conversations and publicize humblebrag reprimands. Also, ix-nay on any real talk about how challenging coach Ben McAdoo's offense is to learn.

Quarterbacks like Mahomes and Webb are in more peril than most rookies, but even position players can come under scrutiny this time of year, when there is little to scrutinize. Bengals rookie receiver John Ross joked after the draft that he could beat Usain Bolt in a footrace. Bolt responded dismissively in comments to The Undefeated's Jesse Washington. Many Americans who watch track every four years must think Bolt devotes all of his non-Olympic time to humoring challenges from NFL players.

Reds outfielder Billy Hamilton then got into the act, reminding Cincinnati sports fans that baseball players are athletes, too. Ross told Katherine Terrell of ESPN.com that a Hamilton-Ross footrace would be a fun charity event. Indeed, watching a baseball player badly lose a sprint to a football player would be much more entertaining for many fans than watching actual track athletes run track.

John Minchillo/Associated Press/Associated Press

The back and forth grew to the point that Bengals coach Marvin Lewis had to step in and insist that Ross was "not a circus act" and would not be racing Hamilton, Bolt, Thunder Snow or anyone else. Ross was too injured to participate in drills during Bengals camp anyway, so his track challenges became nothing more than an unwanted distraction. Or perhaps a wanted one, since every question about Ross racing an ostrich means one less question about Joe Mixon.

No rookie has offered more filet mignon-caliber headline bait in the week since the draft than new Falcons pass-rusher Takkarist McKinley, who was in the NFL for under three minutes when he cussed on camera during the national draft telecast and dared the league to fine him for it.

As an edge-rusher, McKinley has more leeway than quarterbacks when it comes to having his own personality. Still, there's a large, lucrative underbelly of the NFL media that feasts on moments like McKinley's passionate-but-profane tribute to his late grandmother. Some of my more parasitic colleagues latched onto McKinley and began harvesting a seedy stew of snark and outrage from the spectacle of a young man showing genuine emotion at the most important moment in his life.

McKinley defended himself in a series of tweets, but there's a fine line between standing up for your principles and demonstrating that you can be provoked by trolls. There's an old saying about wrestling with pigs; when McKinley faces the media at Falcons rookie camp at the end of the week, he needs to keep in mind that some folks love rolling around in the slop, but NFL coaches hate it when their players do it.

Elsa/Getty Images

McKinley's outburst at the draft was a reminder of how exciting, yet punishingly stressful, a rookie's first days in the NFL can be. Many have just gone from poverty to wealth, or relative obscurity to national fame. Others, like the undrafted free agents and tryouts, are transitioning from dreams of stardom to one last Hail-Mary chance to pursue those dreams.

Rookie camps are a cross between boot camps, employee orientations and Survivor-like reality competitions. Learning Andy Reid's playbook is a challenge for any mortal. Try doing it when you don't know where you will live or what you will drive in 10 weeks, while your entire life is in the midst of changing in every conceivable way.

It's not fair that every misconstrued quote, playful boast or emotional outburst becomes the subject of national analysis, scrutiny and midday spin-cycling even before most of these rookies even see a dime of their first check. But that's the business. No wonder veterans become experts at responding to even innocent questions in politely meaningless cliche heaps. Being vague and deflective is just one more hard lesson rookies learn in May, just after they learn how to identify the Mike.

Of course, not every rookie runs afoul of PR expectations. Jets rookies emerged from the first round of overanalyzed press conferences almost completely un-embroiled in manufactured controversy. Say what you will about not drafting any quarterbacks, edge-rushers or sprint champions, even if you direly need all of them. Selecting players at low-profile positions keeps even Big Apple media attention at a slow simmer.

Jets first-round pick Jamal Adams has provided no red meat to the media, just some cheap pizza. Adams has a reputation for thriftiness, and he told Steve Serby of the New York Post on Friday that he once splurged for $125 worth of pizza for six people. But he said he was a "great tipper," so he left the waitress $15.

Julio Cortez/Associated Press

That's a 12 percent tip, the kind that makes waitresses slow with the refills, at best. Adams is lucky he didn't end up on the back page under a headline like "Big Hitter or Itty-Bitty Tipper?" Soon enough he'll learn that living in the New York area, where $125 can only feed six people dinner if three of them are nursing infants, is going to be a lot harder (or at least more expensive) than he thought it would be.

Adams should stay mum about his tip calculations. By the end of the week, New York sports fans will be distracted by Davis Webb's relationship with Sir Eli. Then the veterans will return, and everyone will officially stop caring about what any rookies have to say anyway.

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @MikeTanier.