Real talk about the “Talk about” question from Grantland’s Bryan Curtis

The Worst Question in Sports: What We Talk About When We Say ‘Talk About’ by Bryan Curtis at Grantland, is a terrific piece on two levels.

First, it’s just a good, solidly reported opinion story. Curtis analyzes the ubiquity of the sports-media question that begins with “Talk about …” as well as it’s cousins, “How big was …” and “Walk me through …” He also marshals a metric ton of examples, complete with video embeds and links. And he interviews sports media colleagues for their views on the tactic and whether they use it.

Curtis writes about the various reasons reporters use “Talk about”: As an ice-breaker at the start of press conferences, to cover up for not having watched the play in question, possibly because they were busy tweeting, to try out the thesis of the reporter’s article on the interview subject, or as a warmup to the real question—as in “Can you talk about the decision to overturn the call and why you overturned the call?”

He talks about the history of the use of “Talk about” and speculates about the reasons for its rise. It’s an engaging, nuanced examination of an often remarked-upon but rarely examined phenomenon in sports media.

And that’s the second reason I liked Curtis’ piece. It would have been easy to write a snarky, wisecracking piece about sportswriters and their stupid “Talk about” questions. “Talk about” is easy to spoof. That spoofy piece would have been greeted by an amen chorus on social media. Curtis didn’t settle for that.

That’s something to talk about.