NEW ORLEANS — Super Bowl media row is a wild place.

There is so much happening with the who’s who in sports and entertainment filtering through a massive space that operates 24 hours a day.

The connections and conversations are lasting, and that’s why it has become one of the most important gathering places on the football calendar.

Here are some of the best of the week that have been cleared to share:

Leaving Las Vegas

Former Raiders running back Josh Jacobs is enjoying his time in Green Bay even if he never wanted to leave Las Vegas.

“I tried everything in my ability,” he said. “I still have a house out there that I had just built. It’s not like I was planning on moving.”

Jacobs opened up about feeling disrespected by the Raiders in tensions that started to heat up in the 2022 offseason when the team declined his fifth-year option. A year later, after he won the rushing title but couldn’t get the long-term deal he wanted, he declined to sign the franchise tag and held out of training camp until agreeing to a one-year deal.

He said this past week he planned to sit out almost the entire season before reporting for the final six games to get an accrued season and hitting free agency. The Raiders sweetening the pot convinced him to report before Week 1, but Jacobs thinks the team was sharing its messaging too much with the media more than with him and turned public sentiment against him.

“You decline my fifth-year option, and I go win the rushing title but still can’t get a deal?” Jacobs said. “What are we doing here?

“They basically told me to shut up and play football. They said, ‘You need the money, so we know you’re going to play.’ I was like, ‘I don’t need the money, first off.’ I don’t need the money. I had been preparing myself to not play.”

A year later, the price of the franchise tag had gone up significantly, and a new regime was in place that was also hesitant to meet the market value for Jacobs.

Jacobs eventually took a four-year deal from Green Bay for $48 million. He says his best offer was three years for $30 million from the Raiders, which he said he was willing to take over his agent’s objections if the Raiders added incentives. Jacobs said it was only when they wouldn’t do so that he moved on.

“I was absolutely willing to take less,” he said. “I’m literally willing to take less to be on this team because I wanted to be a guy that stayed on one team my whole career.”

Home run hire

So many people around the NFL wanted to talk about the Raiders entering a new era with the hiring of coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Spytek.

Former star defensive tackle Gerald McCoy, who raved about Spytek from their time in Tampa and who ended his career in Las Vegas, shared a great recruiting story about Carroll.

McCoy, who had a visit scheduled to USC the following week, was visiting Notre Dame on the day Carroll’s Trojans team beat the Fighting Irish on the “Bush Push.” A fired-up Carroll found McCoy in the tunnel after the game and made sure he knew who won.

“You see what we just did, right?” he asked. “I’ll see you next week.”

Carroll wasn’t done leaving an impression. On his home visit to McCoy’s mother’s house, Carroll took off his shoes, kicked up his feet and took a nap on the couch.

“This white man came in our house, took his shoes off, put his feet up on my mama’s couch and took a nap,” said McCoy, laughing. “You just don’t do that in a Black woman’s house.

“My mama said if that white dude is willing to do something like that, that’s a coach I would love for you to play for. I’m sitting there like, ‘That dude has so much confidence.’”

McCoy decided to stay home at Oklahoma, but his love for Carroll never faded.

“They got the right guy,” McCoy said. “I texted Maxx (Crosby) as soon as I saw the hirings and said, ‘Oh, man, this thing is going to turn around quickly.’”

McCoy predicted a 2025 playoff appearance.

No secret formula

Former Bishop Gorman High star Nick Gates will take the field in the Super Bowl for the Eagles about three years removed from a broken leg that required seven surgeries and left him questioning whether he would play again.

He signed with Philadelphia this season to serve as the backup center and has played 82 snaps at the position, meaning he had to learn their famed “Brotherly Shove.”

Gates said there’s no secret to the play.

“It’s a special play, but once you rep it out and do it, it’s not too difficult,” he said. “I don’t really have a lot of pointers. It’s all about technique and doing it correctly over and over.”

Contact Adam Hill at [email protected]. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.