[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
English soccer seems to get this right, on Fox Soccer channel at least- coverage starts at 2, kickoff at 2:02, and you never once see the commentators- do we really need to see John Madden’s bloated corpse five times a night?
[/QUOTE]
I’d love to say that the English get it right, but what you are seeing on Fox Soccer Channel isn’t what you would see in England. If Liverpool are away at Goodison Park, with a 3:00 game time, you can bet that analysis in England has been going on since noon.
Just checked the BBC schedule for Saturday, and I’m essentially right. 
But Fox Soccer Channel simply ties into the feed from the game as it starts because in America, no one cares to hear endless pregame analysis, and this way they can squeeze in a game every two hours (which with 95 min of soccer, plus 15 min. of halftime, doesn’t leave much extra time!).
And, of course, except for a limited number of Saturday games, the games you are seeing on Fox are all reruns anyway. 
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
Touche, but do we really need so many of them- CBS now has five guys on the crew, and ESPN has like 11 spread out in different parts of the studio- what ever happened to the good old days of just Brent Irv and Jimmy, with Phyllis reporting from the field?
[/QUOTE]
Ah, no. The good old days were when you had no studio crew at all, just the game, with your announcer (and maybe some color commentary if you were lucky). College football didn’t need anyone in the booth with Keith Jackson, or Curt Gowdy.
[QUOTE=Hampshire]
I think analysts are taught to give their observations in extremes. If a risky play goes good the player is brilliant, genius, great. If it goes bad they are deemed careless, reckless, poor decision makers.
I see this with Brett Favre all the time. If he threads the needle and makes the pass they praise him with the “That’s what make him so great, only he can make passes like that, he makes something out of nothing.”
When he attempts the same thing and get intercepted they exclaim “There he goes being careless again, he should have just thrown it away, he really needs to calm down.”
[/QUOTE]
God I hate this. A few weeks ago, the Broncos were somewhere near their own goal line. 15 or 20 or something. It was a 3rd and long situation (really long) and they missed. Bring out the punter right? Well, Shanahan decided to go for it. Cutler threw a beautiful pass. It connected with Marshall (I think) and he dropped the fucking ball. So of course, the announcers had to go on and on and on about what a stupid call that was, but if Marshall had held on, the call would have been praised as the play that turned the whole momentum of the game around.
What I really hate is the way they pick up memes and just parrot them like they’re saying something new. Like last year when everybody decided TO was the worst human being in existence. From then on, nobody could discuss any football game anywhere without mentioning what a horrible person TO was (oddly, Bob Costas was the worst offender! Maybe he felt he just needed something to say…).
I hate all football announcers to varying degrees. The clowns calling last year’s MNF needed to be shot in the face. And Simms makes me me see red. Collinsworth, too. I hate every stupid word that comes out of their stupid mouths.
Just to give an example of what a putz Collinsworth is, he’s got two articles on nfl.com. One is “Defenses don’t win Championships.” The one right after that is “Young Defenses Lead the Way.” The content of the 2nd article contradicts the content of the 1st article. The articles are dated approximately a week apart.
How about this one?
“Yeah, but he didn’t make a football move. Therefore the pass was incomplete.”
What the fuck is a “football move?” I haven’t heard it so much this year, but the last two years, I heard it all the time. And it came from nowhere. Just like “walk-off” home run. This is new, maybe 4 or 5 years old.
[QUOTE=DudleyGarrett]
How about this one?
“Yeah, but he didn’t make a football move. Therefore the pass was incomplete.”
What the fuck is a “football move?” I haven’t heard it so much this year, but the last two years, I heard it all the time. And it came from nowhere. Just like “walk-off” home run. This is new, maybe 4 or 5 years old.
[/QUOTE]
I believe “football move” was added to the lexicon because it was introduced to the rulebook. Did anybody ever explain what a “football move” was or if “football move” the actual term used in the rule book? Not to my knowledge. It’s obnoxious.
[QUOTE=Former NFL Referee Jerry Markbreit]
When a catch is made by a receiver who comes down with both feet on the ground, the “football move” would be: stretching for a first down, diving out-of-bounds or running with the ball. If the “football move” is accomplished, and the receiver is then hit and the ball comes out, it is ruled a catch and fumble, instead of an incomplete forward pass.
[/QUOTE]
link
It may be confusing, or even just stupid, but don’t blame the announcers for the term “football move.” I’ve heard many of them complain about the term themselves.
[QUOTE=DudleyGarrett]
What the fuck is a “football move?” I haven’t heard it so much this year, but the last two years, I heard it all the time.
[/QUOTE]
A wonderful example of dumb sports jargon - this one is so dumb it makes me shout at the TV. Can a football player make a move that isn’t a “football move?” I think they used to say “demonstrate possession,” which sounds wordy but at least made the point. Can’t they just say “catch the ball” or “start running?” “Make a football move” does not explain, in any way, what the player is supposed.
The thing I hate about the “football move” is that if you happen to be standing on the sideline, falling to the ground under the effects of gravity suddenly becomes a football move.
The recent trade of announcers using football jargon is annoying as well- you could start a drinking with John Madden and his use of “contain”, A-gap, B-gap, skinny post, etc.
[QUOTE=Marley23]
Can a football player make a move that isn’t a “football move?”
[/QUOTE]
Well, yeah, if he jumped and threw the ball through the goalposts, that would be a “basketball move.”
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
The recent trade of announcers using football jargon is annoying as well- you could start a drinking with John Madden and his use of “contain”, A-gap, B-gap, skinny post, etc.
[/QUOTE]
Is that recent? Madden’s style has always been a maddening combination of football jargon, meaningless football cliches, and incoherent stories. I think Al Michaels deserves some sort of Congressional Medal for putting up with that every week. And he usually goes the extra mile and tries to engage Madden in some sort of coherent dialogue that’s actually pertinent to the situation on the field.
This is why you should watch games on mute (or in a bar where you can’t hear the TV). For some reason, a lot of football fans are ok with having a pair of aging testicles saying shit you already know. And the larger, lower hanging testicle (we’ll call him Madden) seems to be a couple seminiferous tubles short of filling the ol’ apple bag, and constantly gives us these epiphanies to the game of football such as, "Hey, the offensive linemen are the biggest guys on the field, they’re bigger than everybody else, and that’s what makes them the biggest guys on the field,” and “The team with the most points at the end of the game is going to win.”
Sorry if this seems like it belongs in the pit, I’m not a big fan of football to begin with and the commentary doesn’t help.
My personal pet peeve is whenever there is a replay, some asshole announcer always stresses that there must be “indisputable video evidence to overturn the ruling on the field”.
I think if I just landed here from Mars yesterday, I would know that rule because they repeat it enough…
He was only picked 5 times (the 6th turnover was a lost fumble.) But yeah, he is praised, because he got back on the horse and drove the team to the win. 29/50 for 309 yards and 2 TDs, also setting a Cowboys record for having 4 300+ games in a season, and 3 300+ yard games in a row.
[QUOTE=Pleonast]
This is why it’s always better to listen to a game on the radio while watching it on the television. Radio announcers actually describe what’s going on. There’ll be some blather on radio, but the essentials are covered. TV announcers only blather.
[/QUOTE]
My family has done this for years.
And for the past few years, I’ve been living away from my hometown of Kansas City, and have had to listen to the Chiefs on internet radio. I must say: our color commentator is Lenny Dawson, and he’s fantastic. (If you don’t know him, he’s was the MVP QB of Superbowl IV for the Chiefs in 1970.) He’s celebrating his 50th year in professional Football this year - counting his years broadcasting.
Lenny is soft-spoken and eloquent (amazing for a former QB), but he’s always hard on quarterbacks. He will occasionally chide players who make ill-advised plays that end gaining yardage. I’ve heard him criticize a QB who failed to fall on a fumbled exchange, even though the QB picked up the ball and made a play out of it. I’ve also heard him criticize coaches who (successfully) go for a touchdown when they should have kicked a fieldgoal.
He’s an absolute institution in KC, and IME, universally loved there.
Just wanted to point out that there are exceptions to the OP.
. That was a moronic scramble even though it resulted in a gain. Yesterday, when Romo was intercepted six times and the Cowboys still won, he was also praised