Stafford Was Irked By 49er Questions Regarding Parents’ Divorce

It was a topic about which we hadn’t heard until listening to the recent interview of 49ers coach Mike Singletary by Ralph Barbieri and Tom Tolbert of KNBR. During last month’s Scouting Combine, the Niners met with Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford, and Stafford came away from the meeting a little miffed about how he was treated. The Niners reportedly had a psychologist at the session, who asked questions about the impact on Stafford of his parents’ divorce. The incident occurred while Stafford was in high school, and Stafford claims that the psychologist told Stafford that “it sounded like he had ‘unfinished business’ concerning the divorce.” Stafford responded by saying that “he felt if he should be wondering how much he was being charged by [the] hour for the psychoanalysis.” In our view, Stafford’s better approach would have been to not whine about the line of questioning to a reporter, but instead to recognize that the 49ers might have been more interested in how he responded to the questions than in what he actually said. Indeed, Wake Forest linebacker Aaron Curry told us last month that one of the Saints’ coaches was assuming the demeanor of a drill sergeant while questioning prospects at the Combine, barking out questions and telling the players why each answer was wrong before they could finish answeringf. But Curry laughed about it, realizing that it was one of the tools teams use to see how players handle stressful situations. Stafford opted to react with frustration, instead of realizing that the team might have wanted to use its very limited time with the players to create an environment that would give the decision-makers a more probing look at the kid’s character than the pre-packaged “here’s-what-to-say-and-how-to-say-it” bullcrap that, for reasons still not clear to us, Stafford’s camp allowed ESPN to record and broadcast earlier this year. The goal of the interviews is to find a way to get past the facade that agents and consultants have worked so hard to erect. And, in our view, there’s nothing wrong with doing that. In our view, Stafford didn’t react well to the situation, and it’s one of the factors that the Niners will have to consider if/when Stafford is still on the board when the 49ers use the tenth overall pick in the draft. Based on Singletary’s reaction to Stafford’s reaction, our guess is that the 49ers likely would pass on this specific passer. “If you’re gonna look at drafting a guy in the first round and you’re gonna pay him millions of dollars and asking him about a divorce, about his parents, if that’s gonna be an issue, then you know what? Maybe he doesn’t belong here,” Singletary told KNBR. UPDATE: In fairness to Stafford, his actual comments in the SI article at issue don’t create the impression that he was pissed about the line of questioning. “I felt like, I wonder how much I’m being charged per hour for this?” Stafford said. “But I understand. They’re going to pay a lot of money in the first round.” So why did the Bay Area media get all worked up over this one? And why wasn’t Singletary prepared to set the record straight in this regard when being interviewed by on KNBR Barbieri, given that Barbieri apparently had been criticizing the team’s handling of the Stafford interview at the Combine? (And, yeah, we realize that we should have checked the actual comments in the SI article instead of merely relying on the Bay Area media’s characterization of them.)