From Foster bananas to inferior salads, classifying NFL spreads – The Athletic

One of the things anchored in my psyche thanks to a university professor was never to take anything for free when you cover a sporting event.

OK, what did I know? If my journalism teacher told me that it was unethical to accept anything during his work, that’s how it was. And that’s what I did.

For a match.

I can’t remember where, when and who I was covering other than a high school football game. There there was a good range of dishes. I took a look, then looked again, then stared before I was told it was for the media.

I politely refused because, you know, my teacher … ethics … integrity. Oh, it lasted about a game (hey, I was just following everyone else’s example).

What I ended up learning was that not only was the meal in the press box a tradition, but it was frowned upon if you didn’t eat.

So we in the NFL eat, and we keep track of the press of which teams …