The Sports Curmudgeon®

As the football season draws to a close, I am reminded that I spent a lot of time watching college and pro football on TV for the last five months. I have seen some very good games and I have seen some real dogs. Most of all, I’ve listened to announcers and color analysts and commentators over the past five months that have ranged from very good to persons on whom I wish a case of everlasting laryngitis. So, before the season goes totally dark, let me give you some “football people” evaluations from my note pad.

Watching college football on TV is different from watching the NFL. There are fewer NFL teams so the teams are far more familiar. In addition, the players tend to be much better known/recognized. That means there are different “burdens” on the announcing teams depending on whether they are doing college or pro games. I understand that; I often wonder if the producers of the different programming understand that.

For the college game, there are a handful of announcers that I have come to dread. When I tune into a game I have targeted for viewing – - as opposed to surfing through the channels on a Wednesday night and coming across a game between two teams I really don’t give a fig about – - there are some voices I just do not want to hear. It is hard to say who is at the top of that dreaded list, but Mike Gottfried has to be near the top if not on it. I am sure he is a nice man, but he just goes on and on and on without saying anything insightful. When I hear his voice come through the speakers, I know that at least half of the game will be watched with the “MUTE” symbol lit on the screen.

I really do not like Tim Brandt or Brent Mussberger very much anymore and for polar opposite reasons. Tim Brandt is just dull; he is a vocal Sominex tablet; he could put me to sleep fifteen minutes after a pair of double espressos. Brent Mussberger annoys me in just the other way; he contrives “tension” and “drama” in game situations that are run-of-the-mill. By the time you get to the real crunch time in a game that Brent is doing, you feel as if there is no energy left to witness the next “crisis moment”.

Eric Collins is a mediocre announcer on his best days. Pairing him with Bill Curry is cruel and unusual punishment for the viewing public. When these guys were doing the Houston/SMU game this year, the outcome of the game was not in doubt much beyond halftime. Collins/Curry just could not bring themselves to tell you that – - even though it was blatantly obvious on the screen. Instead, Collins kept saying how SMU was a “team in transition” because they had fired their coach but he was staying on to coach out the rest of the games in the season. OK, he didn’t have to say that SMU just plain stunk out the joint, but he could point out that a Houston team that was only slightly above average outclassed them.

I would like to say with as much clarity as I can muster here that Chris Spielman seriously needs a voice coach. After about five minutes, I find myself listening to the voice and ignoring what he has to say. Maybe that is a blessing; I do not know.

There are three good workers for college football that I noted during my trips through the channels. I will list them here in alphabetical order because I would have to hear them do the same game to really decide whom I like the best:

Ron Franklin

Brad Nessler

Pam Ward

Now, as I reflect on these college football announcers, I have this thought running through my head – with profound apologies to Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel:

Where have you gone Keith Jackson?
A nation turns its lonely ears to you …woo, woo, woo.

For NFL games, the lead announcing team on all of the networks is good. Jim Nantz and Phil Simms is a good pair; they work well together; they seem to talk with each other about the game and let the viewer in on the conversation. My only nit-pick might be that Simms is reluctant to criticize obvious and big-time mistakes – - as if he feel embarrassed for the person who just “screwed the pooch” and doesn’t want to appear to be piling on.

Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are very good together. When Joe Buck was off doing other stuff, Kenny Albert and Troy Aikman were very good together. Maybe that means that Troy Aikman can work with anyone who can speak more clearly than Daffy Duck.

Al Michaels and John Madden are just good together. It is easy to make fun of John Madden for his repetition of the obvious, but he does a good job of explaining how offenses and defenses work to deceive the other unit.

It is fashionable to knock the ESPN MNF crew but I prefer not to do that because they added a huge amount by getting Joe Theismann off the air and then added more by putting Ron Jaworski in the booth. Of the four “front line crews”, ESPN’s is the fourth best, but they are still good.

I like “Moose” Johnston as an analyst. However, will someone take some time with him in the off-season and explain to him that it is a “moot” point and not a “mute” point?

Memo to the “Moose”: All points are “mute”. None of them has vocal chords.

I can only take Kevin Harlan in small doses because he is the NFL’s version of Brent Mussberger. Everything in a game is projected to be a HUGE event. A three-yard pass completion in the first quarter on second and seven is not worth the same emotion and vocal energy as a game-winning TD in the final two minutes. Kevin Harlan exhausts me. Pairing Harlan with Rich Gannon is just plain unfair to the viewing public; Gannon is annoyingly whiny. In addition, I hope that Gannon’s “Secret Santa” gave him Hooked on Phonics for Christmas:

Memo to Rich Gannon: It is not “ath – a – letic”!

Chris Rose and Terry Donahue ought to be illegal. With all of the FCC investigations and crackdowns on offensive things that go out over the airwaves, can’t they find a way to keep that pairing in a soundproof chamber?

Dick Enberg was a good football announcer in days gone by. But the days have indeed gone by and he has lost a whole lot off his fastball. Oh my…

Either JC Pearson is from another planet or he is experiencing the NFL game at a higher plane of intellect than I can ever hope to achieve. One example will suffice here. He was doing the Bears/Seahawks game; the Bears had just scored and were kicking off; the Bears trailed by 7 points with about 15 seconds to play. Every person who sees the game the way I do had to know that an onside kick or some kind of trick play to recover the kick was coming. Nothing else made any sense at all. The Seahawks knew that was the case and when they recovered the onside kick, Pearson said the Bears tried to catch them napping. I’m sorry; I have no idea where that came from or where it was supposed to guide my thinking.

The most underrated NFL play-by-play guy is Ian Eagle. I have said it before and I will say it again. I do not understand why he is not higher on the food chain at CBS than he is.

I like the ESPN studio guys with one exception. Tom Jackson is excellent; Keyshawn Johnson became very good as the season progressed; Bill Parcells was incredibly efficient with his comments which were laden with meaning albeit brief; I like Chris Berman even though it is fashionable to say that his act has grown tiresome. However, Emmitt Smith is – plainly and simply – a disaster behind a microphone. If the US Congress ever passed a law making English the official language of the United States, Emmitt Smith on television might be considered a felony. I wonder if the person at ESPN who interviewed Emmitt Smith for the job and found Smith’s grammar, syntax and pronunciation of simple English words to be “insufficiently horrid so as to be instantly embarrassing” would stand up and identify himself/herself. If that person can be found, it should be a firing offense at ESPN.

I really like the team of Bob Costas, Keith Olberman and Cris Colinsworth. Here are three intelligent, articulate and critical men who entertain and inform at the same time. If NBC “lost” Tiki Barber and Jerome Bettis, I would shed no tears. Peter King is a totally different story; I’ll just let a comment from syndicated columnist, Norman Chad, summarize the way I feel about Peter King on TV:

“Every time NFL insider Peter King comes on ‘Football Night in America,’ he’s just gotten off the phone — I just wish one time it were NBC Sports czar Dick Ebersol telling him not to go on the air.”

The FOX and CBS studio crews are OK but they seem more interested in putting on a comedy program than they are in doing a football show. I watch them in small doses.

A long time ago, the voice of the NFL for big games was Ray Scott. He was a broadcasting minimalist; he let the action on the screen speak for itself. Sadly, I am not sure he would make it in network football telecasting these days; he had no shtick. Now as I reflect on Ray Scott, I once again have these words running through my head:

Where have you gone, Ray Scott?
A nation turns its lonely ears to you … woo, woo, woo.

Finally, here is a comment from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald the sums up my feelings about NFL Network announcing:

Parting thought: What’s worse? That only 39 percent of U.S. homes get games being shown exclusively on NFL Network? Or that the ones who do must listen to Bryant Gumbel?

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…