The latest voice to speak out over the Ines Sainz incident is that of Bears LB Lance Briggs, who doesn’t believe females belong in an NFL locker room.

“I don’t think women should be in the locker room,” Briggs told NBCChicago.com on Thursday. ”The locker room is the place where us guys, us football players, we dress, we shower, we’re naked, we’re walking around and we’re bombarded by media.  A lot of times I’m asking the media to wait until I’m dressed.”

The issue at hand — the presence of and right of females to be in a locker room — was addressed by the NFL in a memo to all 32 teams, which reiterated the league’s policy toward females as professional reporters, who by law are granted the same rights to perform their job as men.

The story took on an added dimension Tuesday, when Clinton Portis was flagged by the league for comments he made on a radio show.

I’ve been privy to conversations during the week involving two of NFL Network’s female reporters — Alex Flanagan and Kara Henderson — and the prevailing feeling on both sides of the conversation, for players and reporters, is that although no one really wants to be in a locker room, the expectations that everyone acts as a professional adult is almost always upheld. Almost.

Until, or unless, the NFL goes the way of some major college programs and bans all reporters from the locker room, instead making players available in another location, Briggs won’t see anything change.

– Frank Tadych

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