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One of the publictations I read (okay, scan) religiously is USAToday Sports Weekly. They’ve got decent fantasy sports advice and I will read anything that has weekly updates on each individual team – and they cover the two sports Tony and I write about in our current collection of blogs (www.brushbackpitch.com is the other, for the uninitiated).
The Web version of USA Today decided to ask fans who the best NFL broadcasters are and I found the results interesting.
NBC’s team of John Madden and Al Michaels was voted the best game announcers, getting more than 39 percent of more than 13,400 votes. My own first place vote probably would have gone to Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, though I can live with the Madden/Michaels duo. Both are on the downsides of their careers, but I remain a bigger fan of Madden than most. He’s a bit goofy these days, but still insightful. And Michaels is consistently solid.
Madden then tied with Troy Aikman for best NFL analyst. I don’t necessarily disagree with this. Along with Simms (despite his alleged knack for reguarly inserting homoerotic statements into his work, which I think is overblown but my wife insists is present in all NFL game broadcasts) , in my opinion, all three are insightful. I would add Ron Jaworski to the list. While I think he has good camaraderie with Mike Tirico and Tony Kornheiser on Monday nights, I’m always even more impressed with the job he does breaking down film during pre-game shows and the NFL draft.
There was no question that it was going to happen but did it have to start already?
We managed to watch one solid playoff game this afternoon during which Arizona upset Atlanta without a mention of New York Jets quarterback Brett Favre. But at halftime of the second game – which is shaping up to be another barnburner between Indianapolis and San Diego – Peter King of CNNSI.com was asked by the NBC Football halftime crew about Brett Favre’s future.
King had spoken with Favre and Jets General Manager Mike Tannenbaum and come to the conclusion that he believes Favre will hang up his cleats during the offseason, this time for good.
So, I was sitting at a local chain restaurant having a quick bite to eat with my wife tonight, and had my eye on the TV watching a little bit of the pregame show before tonight’s Green Bay Packer vs. New Orleans Saints matchup. Fortunately, we didn’t have any sound.
The pregame show is bad enough with the group of jokers that they have on set (including a bit with Trent Dilfer that appeared to be talking about what Tony Romo’s return has meant to Terrell Owens and the Cowboys–and I wouldn’t be shocked if he didn’t bother to mention the illegal contact and pushing off that TO appeared to do in every highlight).
But to make it an even bigger waste of time, they aired a segment that appeared to be a “Newlywed Game” type contest of who knows Reggie Bush better–between what I assume was a teammate and Bush’s girlfriend, Kim Kardashian. That’s right, they devoted at least five minutes of airtime (and who knows how much production time) to a segment that featured a player that is not playing in tonight’s game, and his “celebrity” girlfriend/fiance that is most known for a) having a fat ass, b) having a not quite as famous as Paris Hilton porn tape, and c) getting booted off Dancing with the “supposed” Stars.
Congratulations, ESPN–you have sunk to a new low.
And, to make things worse, in a quick search before writing this, it appears that the Bush/Kardashian bit isn’t limited to Monday Night Pregame–it appears that they are in ESPN: The Magazine, ESPN: The Website, and presumably ESPN: The Vomit Bag. At least, I hope so–I think I need one after seeing that.
After nearly two years of announcements, campaigns, primaries, caucuses, conventions and debates this year’s presidential election is a mere five days away.
It’s crunch time and we’re being bombarded with bitter, vindictive television and radio advertisements and mailings every day. As much as I care what direction our country is heading in I can’t wait until this election cycle ends – and I would have to guess I’m not alone.
But the folks at ESPN don’t seem to think we’ve had enough. Chris Berman intends to interview each candidate Monday and the network will air them during the game.
Do they really think Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama are going to cut open a vein for them? Is there really going to be something groundbreaking? Haven’t we heard enough of these candidates pandering to the sports teams in whatever city they happen to be in on any given day?
I guess I’ll just watch the game with the sound off. I think I get the Westwood One radio coverage somewhere on my radio dial.
ESPN’s Len Pasquarelli occasionally gets criticized by observers for getting too close to some sources and letting it affect his reporting but he also has a keen eye for the game.
So I’d wondered a couple times where he disappeared to during the last offseason.
Pasquarelli had quintuple bypass surgery around the Super Bowl last season and then three weeks later contracted Guillain-Barre Syndrome, an illness that attacks the peripheral nervous system.
So he’s watching games from his couch rather than the pressbox, a fact he was obviously frustrated by when he made a guest appearance on Chris Mortenson’s Mort Report on ESPN Radio Friday night.
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