On Thursday at 3:19 pm, Riders VP of Football Operations, GM and Head Coach Chris Jones issued a statement regarding the 3DownNation report that Johnny Manziel had worked out with the Saskatchewan Roughriders last month.

In the statement, Jones denied the report, which is well within his right.

At the end of the statement, there was this: “I will not be commenting further on the report.”

I’ve seen similar statements from sports organizations, both professional and amateur, before and there is more to lose than gain by it.

When sports organizations do this, it illustrates a lack of transparency and – to be quite honest – a lack of respect to the fan base.

Every business, sports team and person on the planet has confidential information that they aren’t going to share. The words “no comment” are perfectly acceptable.

However, if the point of such a sentence is to control the message, or end the conversation about a story fans are talking about – good luck with that.