For all you jealous Packer hating Vikings fans, take a gander at what power ole Red thinks he wields over all things football.
For those out of the loop, there was a little firestorm last Sunday over Randy "My ego is bigger than Owens’ " Moss pantomiming a mooning to fans at Lambeau Field. (Not Lambert Field, Mr. Kerry) [why let political jabs die so easily?] Almost immediately Fox Sports’ play-by-play man Joe Buck called it “disgusting”.
Well, the usual suspects showed up to decry the overreaction of Buck and denounce any thought of a fine or suspension. I would have thought with all the negative media Moss has been catching, Red would want to downplay this. The team is up for sale and controversy can’t be good for the profit margin.
But now ole Red is firing back. Not only should Randy be exonerated completely for the act, but for fuck’s sake he wants Buck removed from the MN/PHI game this weekend.
Here’s the kicker. In the 3[sup]rd[/sup] paragraph he says he felt Buck’s comments “suggested a predjudice that surpassed objective reporting.” OBJECTIVE REPORTING! From a play-by-play football announcer?!?
So Moss should avoid any penalty for doing something, but the guy who comments it’s his opinion that it’s disgusting should lose the assignment.
What a tool. I kinda liked his southern charm when I first heard him interviewed on a Twin Cities sports show, but wuickly learned to hate the Clear Channel owning motherfucker when he completely fucked up the local stations here.
I don’t know… if it spares me from having to hear Buck whip himself into a fit of righteous anger over the stupid ‘incident,’ it might be a good thing.
McCombs’ move is surprising, but can’t we dampen the outrage at some point? Buck is outraged at Moss, McCombs is outraged at Buck, you’re outraged at McCombs… lot of energy for a non-moon. Let’s all just say “fuck it,” and move on.
Well, of course we can dampen it. But that would make it an MPSIMS thread, wouldn’t it?
It’s really a non-factor to me now that I’m looking forward to next season. But with all the bitching about possible fines or suspensions to Moss, I figured we could dump on Red a little bit for requesting a guy in effect being suspended for voicing an opinion about it.
Whether I’m right or wrong or somewhere in the middle on this, I thought it would be interesting to see if those defending Moss would also defend Buck when the consequence is comparable.
Now if we can get someone who is outraged at Duffer for being outraged at McCombs for being outraged at Buck for being outraged at Moss for being, well, just plain outrageous, I guess, will we have reached the critical mass necessary to start an SDMB chain reaction eventually involving the entire membership, including those not yet born?
It sounds as if someone needs to explain to McCombs where football revenues come from.
I think for him, he sees the revenue coming from either San Antonio building a new stadium, or a buyer in L.A. The guy has so much money you could embezzle the money he gets from the tv contract and he’d never notice.
Buck way over did it with the outrage and I really think that the mooning was an incredibly trivial thing for people to get so worked up about but Red is being silly by asking for Buck to be removed from the air.
A public apology to Moss and the Vikings would be good enough for me.
If that means the end of that Slamalamadingdong schtick of Buck’s, which is so stupid that it’s at least as disgusting as a pretend mooning, I’m all for it.
It’s hard to find a sports announcer that doesn’t suck anymore. Buck is pretty bad, though. He’s not Joe Theisman bad, but he’s bad. He talks during the action, and gives his boring opinions on the characters of everyone who plays. It’s fine to say it’s your job to give opinions, but if it’s my job to make salads, I better make good, tasty salads and not throw a bunch of crap in a bowl and say, “that’s my job, to make salads.”
It seems the Green Bay fans have taken the moon as a major offense to their delicate sensabilities.
I expect to hear a clamoring for mass arrests of Cheeseheads who give the traditional moon to the opposing team’s busses. Not pantomimed. Skin and orifice for everone to see.
Selective outrage. Buck has no problem with Favre jamming his fingers into Offard’s facemask, risking an eye injury. But feigns outrage over a sophmoric stunt.
So true. So sad. And oh God - the “team” that does ESPN games - God, they are past annoying.
I do tend to like listening to Chris Collinsworth (sp?) and Troy Aikman. I don’t know if Troy is being fed info via headphones, or if he just “gets it”, but he’s usually got interesting stuff to say. Collinsworth can be funny and sorta irreverent.
I used to like Madden, but last I heard he was out back banging Favre behind the meat wagon whilst playing that inane, over-marketed computer game of his. And Al Michaels’s act has worn thin.
The ESPN crew is an abomination.
Jim Nance - well, he’s a mewling dandy that has no business in a football booth. I hate him even when he’s doing the Masters. I wish they’d banish him to women’s figureskating and make him wear a tasseled buttplug.
Dan Dierdorf - he’s become a bit too cuddly in his later years for my tastes, but I can stand him.
Pat Summerall - I used to really like him with Madden. When I saw that he was doing pre-season ESPN games with the Two Idiots (theisman and maguire), I was optimistic, and after a rocky start he seemed to be getting into the groove. But then silly Mike Patrick returned, and the Trio from Hell was back in the saddle. (Maguire often sounds like he’s either half in the bag or just brain-addled. I can’t count the number of times that he’s come out with some inane comment, only to have the other two dum-dums in the booth fall silent for 10 seconds to let him hang out in the wind.)
OT: Has anyone else gotten to the point where watching ABC MNF games has become especially difficult due to the new levels of marketing hype that is thrown at us? For some reason, I can watch the other channels OK (Fox, ESPN with the volume off, and CBS), but ABC’s MNF games have just become so annoying that I find myself walking away unless it’s a big-time game. I guess it’s just the demographics they’re marketing towards nowadays…
FWIW, I was more surprised and offended by Buck’s over-the-top moralizing reaction to Moss’s stunt that I was over Moss’s stunt.
From listening to Buck, you woulda thought that Moss had dropped trou and was lustily shitting all over the end zone, and then hurling the steaming turds up at the Packer Faithful.
For my team’s games, I routinely mute the TV and turn on the radio. The station is indulgent enough to delay the broadcast a few seconds to synchronize it with the picture.
True, there just aren’t very many network announcers who add to the experience rather than distract from it, but the radio guys who aren’t under such outside commercial pressure have the freedom to do the job well.
Almost immediately Fox Sports’ play-by-play man Joe Buck called it “disgusting”.
