I didn’t think I’d have to keep talking about an empty room. Yet here we are.

The reaction to Tennessee Titans quarterback Cam Ward’s hot mic moment before his postgame press conference keeps getting dumber and dumber. The latest national voice to pile on is Manti Te’o, who used his spot on NFL Network’s Good Morning Football to lecture the Titans’ franchise quarterback about professionalism.

Quick recap. Ward walked into the media room after Tennessee’s Week 4 loss to the Baltimore Ravens. No reporters were in the room yet. It was just Titans employees, a rolling camera, and a hot mic nobody seemed to realize was on. Ward cracked a few jokes with people he knows, and the internet decided it was a referendum on his character.

Is Ward “a punk” for this? Absolutely not. He was clearly joking. I’ve said it on our morning show the last couple of days, and I’ll say it again here.

Cam Ward wasn’t good enough against the Ravens, and that’s fair criticism

I’m not here to go to bat for Ward’s play. There’s a normal way to criticize a quarterback and say he needs to be better, and Sunday gave everyone plenty of material.

I agree with Titans head coach Robert Saleh that it was Ward’s best game. Still, in my opinion, Ward wasn’t good enough to help the Titans’ offense overcome early mistakes by his teammates in a winnable game. Lamar Jackson missed the entire second half with an ankle injury. Baltimore was there for the taking.

That’s a fair critique. However, turning a press conference room gaffe into an attack on his character is so ridiculous.

Manti Te’o’s take on Cam Ward misses the mark

Enter Manti Te’o.

Of all people, Te’o decided it was his turn to chime in on the situation during Good Morning Football.

“Cam, you gotta know better, man,” Te’o began. “I’m not going to give him any excuse. The reality is, we’ve been in those situations after losses, after hard starts to the season. Nobody wants to be up there answering some questions, but that’s part of the job. And if you have that— we’ve all had those thoughts, like, man, I just want to go home— have those conversations in private by yourself. Like, just do that, and then be a professional.”

“Go up there and answer it like a professional. Just stand there and receive those questions and give those answers. That’s part of the job, right? We’ve all had those conversations. We all had those thoughts like, what am I doing? I just want to go home and just be with my family. That’s part of the— that, that, that’s part of the contract that you signed. So do a good— do a better job. Like how KB said, it’s time and place. That wasn’t the time and that wasn’t the place. Have that conversation before you step on the podium. Definitely don’t do it on a hot mic for everybody to hear.”

All right, Manti. Cam held his press conference. He answered questions. He has never turned away from answering questions, buddy.

And “you gotta know better” is coming from Te’o?

Te’o spent the 2012 college football season believing he was in a relationship with a woman whose identity and death were part of a catfishing scheme on him during Notre Dame’s national title hopes and his Heisman Trophy candidacy. 

If anybody should understand the danger of judging an athlete through a sensational story without first examining all the context, it should be Manti Te’o.

That experience should have made him more careful with Ward, not less.

What actually happened in the Titans press conference room

Te’o is acting like Ward refused to step to the podium. He literally answered questions at the podium. So let’s walk through the situation.

While Ward is talking, Jared Puffer, Titans PR, says, “I guess Troy’s going to be asking the questions now.” Troy is a Titans videographer who was in the room.

Ward smiles at Troy. “Well, I guess I’ll be getting good questions now from Troy,” Ward joked.

Troy fires back off camera: “I got nothing.”

Ward laughs. Then he looks over and says, “I got 3 minutes, Puff.”

Not “bro,” like everybody keeps claiming in social media captions. “Puff”. As in Puffer, who has handled shuttling players back and forth to press conferences for the Titans for a while now.

I actually counted this on the Titans’ postgame livestream Sunday. Ward popped onto the team’s live stream camera where he was on his phone (after the viral ‘walk out’ moment). My recording caught him asking “you said what?” to someone off camera. Titans team reporter Jim Wyatt’s voice was heard, along with another voice saying “here they come.”

The stream cut back to the waiting music for another 54 seconds. Then the feed came back, and Ward answered questions about the loss to the Ravens.

“Whether it’s throwing the football, running the football, but at the end of the day it’s all of us. It’s not just one person. It’s not just Coach (Brian) Daboll in the box. It’s all of us, and we all got to get better in the red zone.”

That included his early interception off the hands of running back Tony Pollard. It wasn’t his fault, but it still lands on his stat sheet. Ward said he should have thrown Pollard a better ball.

“I just think I can make it easier for him. Me and Tony, we’ve hit on that play a lot of times last year. I know for him, he wants that play back. I want it back. But I think if I can put in his chest a little bit more and make it easier for him, then he’ll have a chance to get upfield.”

He came forward. He owned it. That’s what a pro does.

So why are we being this ridiculous? Ward walked into a room full of team employees he knows, a camera just happened to be rolling, and now national TV analysts are treating it like he ducked the media.

Te’o has been way less aware than Ward, and way more publicly. That happened in 2012, back in the very early days of Twitter. Could you imagine what that story would look like today?

Manti, you gotta be better, man.