So the NFL Network tried to do its subscribers a favor this past weekend and replayed the Bengals/Jets game from Thanksgiving night without announcers.
Since the NFL Network booth includes Joe Theismann and Matt Millen, this is the sports fans’ equivalent of the guy who ran the sound board at Wings concerts turning down Linda McCartney’s microphone (Kids, to appreciate this, you must go to YouTube and simply search “Linda McCartney singing,” but have a finger right handy for the mute button, okay?).
Since it started broadcasting games a few years ago, the NFL Network has a very spotty history with announcers. It once employed Bryant Gumbel as a play-by-play man. Gumbel was so bad that Dave Chapelle refused to do a skit on his show satirizing Gumbel’s incompetence because there was no way he could top the real thing.
The thing is, Gumbel’s color man was Cris Collinsworth, who I think might be the best around. It’s the same thing with Theismann and Millen, whose play-by-play partner is Bob Papa. Papa is terrific at calling Giants games on the radio. Unfortunately, he tones things down for the national (actually, miniscule) NFL Network audience and comes off sounding neutered.
But back to Theismann and Millen. Theismann is a long-time pain in the butt, going back to his days at ABC and then ESPN. He is the classic “can’t get enough of the sound of his own voice” color guy. Word has it Theismann wasn’t particularly popular with his teammates during his playing days with the Redskins, and it’s easy to understand why after hearing him call one game. He must have dominated team meetings and made everyone late for practice talking about himself in the locker room.
As for Millen, the critics loved him early in his broadcasting career, pre-Lions GM debacle. I actually thought he was doing a poor rip-off of John Madden’s schtick and wasn’t a big fan. But I didn’t mind when ESPN hired him to broadcast again last year, and I didn’t think at the time that his ineptitude as a GM made him unqualified to analyze football, as many did.
Well, I was wrong. The guy clearly lost his marbles in Detroit. I mean, Wayne Fontes or Marty Mornhinweg must have performed some kind of football lobotomy on him. He’s got absolutely no idea what is going on on the field at a particular moment, so he fills the airwaves with coaching jargon thinking that if he can make enough references to unbalanced lines, A-gap blitzes and cover-3 zones, and say it all with Dan Dierdorfian authority, he’ll sound like he knows what’s going on. Then he’ll stick in an occasional “slobber-knocker” to try to appeal to the guys with mustaches watching in the Midwest with buffalo wing sauce all over their shirts. Why Frank Caliendo hasn’t started impersonating Millen yet is beyond me. Maybe he’s just too easy a target.
I didn’t watch the announcerless re-broadcast. Watching Carson Palmer on a stomach full of turkey, stuffing and pie was bad enough. I would encourage the NFL Network to broadcast one of its Thursday night games live with an empty booth. It will never happen, unfortunately, but I bet they would get a lot more good reviews if they did.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
