Mike McCarthy Gently Pushing a Camera Probably Not a Big Deal

The Dallas Cowboys went out sad last night against the San Francisco 49ers. Shortly after green-lighting a play so bizarre it deserves its own statue and documentary, Mike McCarthy went about the work of meeting Kyle Shanahan for the post-game handshake. There are always six million people scurrying about the field like the entree portion of Chopped after the final whistle and sometimes they have to interact. In this case, a cameraperson got a bit too close for the Cowboys coach's comfort and paid the very dear price of having the camera he was carrying touched briefly.

Josie Lepe of the Associated Press captured a still image of the incident and it was enough for people to call McCarthy "classless" in print. But as it turns out, this wasn't exactly the crime of the century.

Noah Bullard, the affected party and award-winning photojournalist for NBC 5 in Dallas/Fort Worth, explained how a still image works and that McCarthy later apologized for something that's clearly not as dastardly as it was made out to be.

Obviously, like when they went to visit George Bluth in prison, there should be no touching at all. Dealing with frustration and another lackluster showing against a traditional rival on national television is not enviable. So when someone gets too close to your airspace, it can inspire a less-than-ideal reaction.

Yet. Yet! It seems like we have the rare opportunity to sidestep the outrage cycle on this one. Or let the initial outrage be enough before it was eventually revealed to be based on full context. We so rarely band together and choose not to go down the road where we all yell at each other and build a web of backlash to the backlash to the backlash.

Let's check back in a few hours and see what the temeprature feels like.