Nice poem, fuckface. What is this, the Sports Reporters? “Rage against the dying of the light?” Yeah, because not playing football anymore is exactly the same as death. And Brett Favre’s the same as your dad.
I hate Monday Night Football. Everything’s a story. Why can’t a football game just be a football game? Nobody’s going to stay up until midnight just for the pleasure of listening to these assbaggers wax philosophical; they either want to see the game, so they watch, or they don’t watch at all. Right?
I can’t stand this trio and whatever shithead celebrity they bring into the booth, especially after seeing their “second team” announcers (Vermeil, Jaws and uhhhhhh, Other Guy) kick ass. The second I think this game is out of hand, I’m turning it off (hoping GB pulls out a victory, would help the Saints chances of making the playoffs).
Kornheiser’s a funny guy who somehow parlayed that talent into a sportswriting gig at the WaPo, then upward and onward from there, despite knowing little more (and often less) about sports than a reasonably well-informed fan.
I’m deeply appreciative of his TV and radio gigs because (a) I never catch them, and (b) it’s considerably reduced his presence in the pages of the WaPo.
How long was that story before the game about that little kid? Two hours?
God, I hate schmaltz.
I kept turning away, and then flipping back. Every time, that little kid was there bugging the players. I don’t even know what disease he had. I’m just really really sick of sports media always trotting out sick kids whenever they want to emphasize the importance of sport.
Wow, I had no idea. Man, am I thankful that we had the TV on mute during the game. Not only because of Kornhole’s ramblings, but it meant that I didn’t have to listen to Joe Theismann, aka Brett Farve’s man-whore.
Add me to the list of people who wish that they’d cut out all the schmaltz and interview crap and just concentrate on football.
Funny, I think Kornheiser is the best guy in that booth. Tirico is boring and Theismann is, well, Theismann ('nuff said about that). Monday Night Football was great because it had announcers that never changed for years. Now they seem to change every year, and people don’t like announcing teams that they are unfamiliar with. They also really hate announcers that they are familiar with and hate already, like Theismann.
Give me Al Michaels any day of the year. Put him in the booth with Madden and Kornheiser and leave it the hell alone until one or all of them get tired of doing it, then make a change. Let people get used to the people they’re listening to instead of imposing your idea of who you think a great announcer should be every year, ABC/ESPN.
Last night I was watching when things started going really wrong for Green Bay (3rd quarter) and Tony started saying “It’s over. This game is over.” I start laughing, telling my wife that the producers must have been shitting themselves waiting for pissed off calls from advertisers whom had commercials following Tony’s proclamation. He goes on this theme for about 15-20 seconds before Theismann breaks in, rebutting that Brett Farve is quite capable of leading the Packers out of this situation. Tony starts yelling back “It’s over! It’s over! We’re not looking at the Brett Farve of a few years ago - I’m telling you, it’s over!”
The thing that was bothering the crap out of me last night is that it seems to me like, for some reason, football announcers lose any sense that their job is to comment on, you know, the actual game when Favre is playing in it.
I watched the whole game, and Favre sucked. He wasn’t just bad; he was Dave Brown. There were guys who were wide open who he was overthrowing by twenty yards. Underthrows, overthrows, bad decisions… it was bad.
Now, I’m not a professional broadcaster like Joe Theismann (sigh), but it seems to me that the story of that game, at least as it related to Brett Favre, was: is he doing his team a disservice by continuing to stubbornly hang in the starting lineup, play poorly, and impede the growth of the presumptive quarterback of the future? Should Aaron Rodgers be getting more than garbage time at this point, to see if he really can perform at a high level or if the Packers should consider using their (likely high) first round draft choice in 2007 on, say, Brady Quinn? I’m not saying the answer is obvious, but isn’t that at least a dicussion that football analysts ought to be having?
But instead, I have to hear them wax poetical, in the fourth quarter of a game in which Favre is playing seven kinds of awful, about how awesome it is that Favre has played a lot of games in a row. Why does no one paid to comment on a professional football game mention that maybe, just maybe, it’s time to interrupt your streak when you are no longer capable of consistently throwing more than half of the passes you attempt to the folks in the jerseys that look like yours?
The reason people like Kornheiser on PTI is because he’s forced to shut up. Also, Wilbon’s a good foil for him (don’t want to deny him anything). But Kornheiser won’t shut up on MNF. Just STFU, man. People didn’t like Dennis Miller? He’s miles above this guy. (Not that Miller was great.)
Not only do they refuse to examine that angle, they bring up “criticism” of Favre (and of course the only context in which I’ve heard any real criticism of Favre is in a situation like this where the announcer is offended by it) for not mentoring Rodgers, and Theismann dismisses it because it’s not Favre’s job to help Rodgers learn the system. Well, shit, Favre’s job isn’t to throw six balls a game up for grabs, is it? Maybe, since there’s eight people in the pregame show and three or more in the broadcast booth, and some more on the sidelines, somebody could, I don’t know, express an opinion other than “what a grizzled warrior, and simultaneously, what a youthful and beautiful spirit.” But what am I thinking? You can’t play sentimental music and show a montage of Favre not teaching Rodgers things while Suzy Kolber mantalks her way through a hard-hitting analysis of the decline in Favre’s production, can you? Then how would they fill their sixty-five hours of pregame?
Fucking ESPN, man. Everything’s a show. At this point I’d pay $20 a game to watch a broadcast with a splitscreen of the coaches’ camera and the sideline camera, with a robot reading statistics to me. I get enough smarmy pricks telling stupid jokes and trying to sell me obvious bullshit during the 90 minutes of commercials. Which reminds me, they put Paul Maguire on NCAA football duty this year, which means that, in breaking up that horrifying triumvirate, they’ve managed to infect just about every sector of the sports TV world. I can’t watch ACC basketball or prime-time college football because of Patrick, Theismann ruins Monday nights, and now Maguire haunts my Saturday afternoons. Throw in Tony Siragusa and I might as well never turn the TV on again.
Thanks for this thread, I was so mad at Theisman and Kornheiser that
I had to turn the stupid game off–and I usually watch all the way through no matter how crappy the game is…hey, it’s football, right?!!
But I just could not stand the constant Favre love fest. GB is LOSING the game and all Kornheiser can talk about is Favre, Favre, Favre. What about McNabb? Andy Reid? Any of the players that are WINNING this contest?
Pass after pass clangs to the ground incomplete or over the receiver’s head yet still the greatness of Favre is expounded upon.
What poor preparation to only be prepared to talk about ONE player when there are 21 others on the playing field. I almost feel sorry for Favre…it’s not his fault that announcers obsess about him. It’s got to drive him a little crazy too when the media goes on and on about him, especially when he is not playing well.
Oh, yeah, and I had to laugh when TKorn kept saying “This game is over…!!”
Dude, your job is to KEEP PEOPLE WATCHING! I bet the director was screaming in his ear to shut up when he started telling people it’s OK go ahead and watch something else because THE GAME IS OVER! Ha!
I actually think the Patrick-Mcguire-Thiesmann combo from last year is better than this years team, and agree 100% the Jaworski and two other guys second team was awesome. But all of three of these are preferable to listening to John Madden repeat everything Al Micheals says, twice, for three hours, and explain in detail things that would be obvious to a martian from a fotball-less planet.
I like Tony K., but I can see his sense of humor not going over well- it’s a bit odd, and clearly not everyone’s cup of tea, and in that type gig you can’t be Spinal Tap, you have to be Shrek 2.
That truly has to be one of the most asinine things a sportscaster has ever said.
I mean, I’m inured to the whole let’s-line-up-to-give-Favre-blowjobs ethic that pervades the football sportscasting community. But it usually mostly sticks to stuff that’s more or less related to his playing of the game, with occasional nods to his also being an exemplary citizen and yada, yada, yada off the field.
But a line like this takes Favre-worship to a whole new level. Good grief.
