Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Idiot Broadcasters

When watching or listening to football nothing is more frustrating than idiot broadcasters. I can handle the color-man being one sided or falling all over a particular player, that can upset me but generating an emotion is fine. But play-by-play guys or color-guys who say the dumbest things are annoying and painful to listen to. Here are just a couple of examples from this weekend...

Joe Sensor - Vikings Radio color-commentary guy
I am torn on the KFAN Radio broadcast. I tend to enjoy Paul Allen's play-by-play. He gives me the game with some flare, he is obviously a Kool Aid drinker but isn't a complete homer when he's giving the call. Joe Sensor on the other hand is just an idiot. Because you played in the NFL does not necessarily mean you have the qualifications necessary to give good commentary throughout the game. I think Joe feels that if he's talking he's doing his job so he talks out of his ass when he thinks there might be a nano-second of dead air. Knowing something about the game or the rules helps immensly when calling a game.
Case in point on Sunday I was driving home and listening to part of the 1st half on the radio. There was a play with offsetting penalties. Offensive holding on Carolina and defensive on Minnesota. Joe told us how that was not the right call because the ball was not catchable, therefore it should just be offensive holding on Carolina. Sounds great Joe, but if you knew the rules you would know that with defensive holding whether the ball is catchable or not is irrelevant. If that were an isolated incident I would say big deal, but he is constantly squabbling over official's calls saying things that are just absolutely false. He is terrible.

Bill "Beep Nice" Maas - Fox TV color-commentary guy
Maas is always bad, but he should probably win an award for his call on Sunday. After Carolina won the overtime coin flip, he actually suggested that if he were the coach he would have chosen to kick off. In his world of fuzzy logic and "purist football" the Panter defense was playing so well that it would have taken the pressure off of the offense. He was 1/2 right as the Panther offense stalled quickly and punted. But the Carolina defense as we all know let the Vikings march down the field on their first OT drive and kick a chip shot for the game winning FG.

Maas's second offense (really his first because it happened earlier in the game) was rather comical. Fred Smoot comes up to make a nice open field tackle in the flat for no gain. He gets up and does his usual little dance because he actually made a tackel. The Vikings fans started yelling "SMMMOOOOOOOTTT." Maas who is a self describe football purist assumes that the Minnesota fans are booing Smoot for his unneccesary dance for simply making a tackle. While that would be refreshing to see fans not rewarding such behavior, BM should listen, think for about 2 seconds then put the 2 together and realize that is sounds more like "SMMOOOOOOTT" than BOOOO.

Honorable Mention Idiot - Micheal Irvin - he is painful to listen to AND watch.

To be fair I should list some of the better broadcast individuals out there...
Erin Andrews (ESPN)
Melissa Stark (NBC)
Jill Arrington (CBS)

There are many more knucklhead broadcasters out there (as well as some good ones), please comment with ones I am missing.

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