Sunday NFL Countdown: The reactions of the hosts?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

I tivo’d Sunday NFL countdown just to see how they dealt with the week of national exposure and heated attention. It was the most emotional 5 minute segment on a football talk show I had ever seen.

I am wondering what people think about their reactions and explanations on air this past Sunday.

I find it very interesting….as they themselves do…that they did not hear Rush say what he said. They were all thinking in a football mentality….and simply did not register the weight of what Rush said when he said it. They all felt tortured by that fact all week, while they received resentment for not challenging Rush the moment he made his comments.

After hearing them speak, I am also fairly certain Rush was fired because they were furious and probably said he goes or they go. Maybe not all of them, but I bet Tom Jackson gave an ultimatum, either Rush goes or he goes. Tom Jackson looked deeply pained and probably feels he let people down for missing Rush’s comment. Jackson seems like a very intense guy anyways.

Anyways, any thoughts? (about the other hosts, not Rush)

#2

it was borderline over-the-top. it went on too long. after a while i said, “okay guys, i got it. enough already.”

#3

Tom seemed majorly pissed. Even before the final remarks by Limbaugh, in previous weeks you could tell that Tom did not like him at all.

The other members, Steve, Michael, and Chris all seemed saddened, but not overly so like Tom. I guess being the senior minority member of the cast, Tom caught a lot of flack for not speaking up initially. I had not seen the original statement by Limbaugh, last week, but when they replayed it yesterday, I noticed that the other members of the crew didn’t even seem notice it.

I’m just glad they got rid of Limbaugh, not simply for the boneheaded remarks, but for the simple fact that he was dull and often got his football facts incorrect. The guy should not have been hired in the first place. Even Dennis Miller was an improvement over him.

#4

I thought that the pre-packaged video was pretty damn self-serving. No quote from the executive producer of the show (who hired Rush in the first place), no mention of ESPN’s original press release which supported Rush, just annonymous quotes from “ESPN”.

I didn’t think that TJ had much to appologize for, he at least called Rush on how stupid his comments were from a football standpoint. Best lines of the thing on Sunday were him saying “We did not choose to have Rush join us.” and Young saying “I think we missed it because nobody has talked about a ‘black quarterback’ or a ‘white quarterback’ for 20 years.”

-lv

#5

I found it odd that they kept mentioning how they “missed it”. I was watching when Limbaugh said that, and it was the first Sunday NFL Countdown I’ve seen this season… I was pretty much waiting for him to say something about how “the darkies shouldn’t be quarterbacking or coaching because only the white fellas are smart enough to do that.”

Rush Limbaugh is a racist, and frankly, ESPN and TJ got what they deserved. They should both have seen this coming.

On the other hand, my respect for Steve Young has doubled; he was the only one that said something that really made sense, despite having perhaps the least stake in all this. (ie. Chris Berman has creative control, and TJ and to a lesser extent Michael have been catching all kinds of flak for not shooting down Rush on the show)

#6

As others have said it was only a matter of time until Rush pulled a stunt like this. I remember reading that Rush wouldn’t be bringing his politics with him to the show, then the very first segment he has he complains about the NFL’s version of affirmative action regarding coaching hires. Whether or not the NFL’s policy is a good one or not, I saw that Rush wouldn’t be able to avoid topics like that right out of the gate.

#7

In Peter King’s column this week, he mentions that a “very reliable source” told him that TJ would not have been back had Limbaugh not resigned/been fired.

#8

I dunno, It seems odd that nobody on the show would bother to listen to what one of the other hosts has to say. I assumed that discussion of various commentary would be part of the show, but I’m not in TV, so what do I know?

I do think it’s a bit unseemly to attack someone who’s just been forced to resign from your show. Saying you never wanted him there in the first place is downright low. Feel free to give an interview with the press and make that statement, but to do it on the show?

It would have been much classier to say “We all have strong feelings about what went on, but this is neither the time nor the place to air them.”

#9

This is just a bit of a guess, but I assume that alot of what goes on is staged. You seldom seem them stumble as you would assume would occasionally happen with speaking from the hip. So I would guess that there are themes and that the cast is only somewhat paying attention to one another and is more focused on wording their part when it comes up. IIRC both Jackson and Young attacked Limbaugh’s statement, but only from a football and not a societal viewpoint, more or less saying that his Rush’s words didn’t hold water. It also seemed that this might have been an attempt to steer the conversation back into safe, football related commentary.

Net, I think that if it was just a group of guys discussing McNabb in a bar that Jackson would have called him on the carpet, but since different rules (normally) dictate what happens in a live broadcast, that it didn’t occur to him to directly call him on it.

#10

Link to peter king article.

but he doesn’t expand on it.

I was pretty certain that was the case.