Jon Gruden drives me nuts. You wanna talk about a guy who yells too much? You wanna talk about a guy who thinks he’s being edgy when he says the obvious? You wanna talk about a guy who can flat annoy me?
Then again, the only football announcer I ever liked was Pat Summerall.
Update. Who is more annoying, the long-haired UPS white board guy or the faux-Native American IBM “smarter grid” guy?
thomas Levenson
Plus 13 year olds should not be on TV this late.
Call me when Gruden can shave.
Osceola
Absolutely true about Pat Summerall. Ray Scott was pretty good, too. But you have to be old to remember him. Chucky? Not so good.
MTmofo
But when he said, “If the Ravens wore their throw-back uniforms they would be the Cleveland Browns!”
That just cracked me up.
Just Some Fuckhead
Summerall was good but there needs to be a mandatory retirement age for broadcasters. After he turned 100, he was pretty much mistake after mistake.
emrventures
Keith Jackson
Just Some Fuckhead
I’m feeling an odd sensation. Lighter, amused but not laughing.. is this what they call happiness??
Corner Stone
You wanna talk about someone who’s ripping of ESPN’s The Sports Guy’s routine?
Bam! Right there!
cmorenc
It’s usually a required qualification to become a sports announcer that you have an advanced degree from an accredited university: the M.O. degree (Master of the Obvious).
This requirement is often waived for prominent former players in the sport they’re being hired to announce, because well…they’re given credit for life experience in lieu of a Master of the Obvious degree.
Dustin
Meh. I’ll stick with water cooler banter and web stats for my games. The announcers, the annoying “our tribe/troop/team/whatever is teh best. whoohooo!” social psychology, the lowest-common-denominator ads (Seriously.. when the fuck did “a dash of spray malt, a squirt of hop oil extract, and a shitton of water” become the preferred beer of choice for Americans?)…. I can’t stand any of it. I only follow who’s winning and who’s losing so I don’t sound like a social pariah during our manager’s meetings at work.
Ronnie P
I’m with you. He and Jaws have more or less the same intonation. Also, Gruden’s an over-praiser.
DougJ
You wanna talk about someone who’s ripping of ESPN’s The Sports Guy’s routine? Bam! Right there!
It’s an homage.
SarahLoving
@DougJ
Dude, this is the other “football” but have you ever heard Ray Hudson?
This is how announcing should be done:
SarahLoving
arghhhh….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS6Np-g_h5w&feature=channel
MCA
No, no, no. I’m afriad DougJ’s got it wrong on this one. Gruden is a breath of fresh air. He’s so close to the league, he points out the exploitable weaknesses and strengths of individual players because he’s been scouting them on film preparing for games their whole careers. I consider myself knowledgable about football, and Gruden actually teaches me stuff. So does Jaworski, I guess, but he’s kind of a stiff. For some reason, I find Chucky’s enthusiasm infectious instead of offputting. If I were a professional football player, I’d lurve to have that guy as a coach.
Pat Summerall was a play-by-play guy. Same with Keith Jackson, who someone else mentioned. If you want to do away with the color analyst altogether, I can dig that, but you can’t compare the guys doing that job to the guys doing the verbal dictation of game action. Frankly, I’d rather do away with the play-by-play altogether and leave the color guys. All the former do is add artificial “excitement” to the game. I can plainly see when the quarterback is handing off to the running back for a run off tackle, thanks. You don’t need to tell me who’s kicking off and to whom. It’s frankly pretty obvious to any sentient viewer. I’d rather hear from the guy who notes the good block by the pulling left guard who took out the linebacker that I might have missed in real time.
skippy
actually i used to be the ibm guy.
i’m the one w/the tie on my head…
Corner Stone
@MCA: Are you kidding? Is this spoof-esque?
Cheryl from Maryland
I’m so sick of football announcers who just focus on the QB and receivers. They are the Tim McCarvers of Football. Uck!
Common Sense
A seriously underrated announcer is Gus Johnson. He is usually delegated to the worst AFC game that week (believe me, as a Texans fan I know this from experience). He got in a little hot water for saying Chris Johnson has “getting away from the cops” type speed, but this is a case of Gus’s mouth getting ahead of his brain. His excitement is contagious. A good play by play man can draw you into the game and make you notice all the off play blocks that MCA is noting. All the ex-coach color guy has to offer is stale stories about the player in question getting hazed one time in training camp as a rookie 10 years ago.
The worst ones are always color announcers. Limbaugh. Miller. Kornheiser. Madden (yeah I said it).
handy
Summerall was great. I loved how he would over-annunciate players’ names after they made a big play.
“Touch down…Kelvin Maaaaartin”
Jared
Is Pat Summerall still alive? In all seriousness, I could’ve sworn I heard him doing a weekly high school sports magazine show on cable.
Yutsano
@emrventures: Keith Jackson went to my university. He’s one of the most famous journalist alums (Edward R. Murrow is the top of that list) and loved to come home to the tiny college town to call games whenever ABC bothers to grace us with their presence there. And in a great testament to his professionalism, he never homered his coverage.
Andy K
@MCA:
This.
You can’t compare Gruden to Summerall. Now if you want to compare Gruden to Tommy Brookshier or John Madden, feel free. Honestly, I’ve got no opinion on since I’ve only caught him once, and I was talking to my dad and sister about the game more than I was listening to the tv crew.
d. b. cooper
Hmm, I think Gruden’s the best analyst in football. Entertaining, doesn’t annoy me, adds something to the game, is not Tony Effing Kornheiser. I have a hard time stomaching just about anyone else other than Herbstreit and Billick.
Common Sense, you beat me to Gus Johnson, the guy is incredible at everything he does; basketball, football, even MMA (the only good thing about MMA ever). Other than him Musberger (golden voice, sharpest eye, though talks about Nascar with too much enthusiasm for my taste) and Tirico (I know people hate him, but I don’t get those people) are very sharp.
d. b. cooper
Also, I’d say Aikman was good if it weren’t for his bizarre tendency to insert “what” unnecessarily into every third statement he makes. For instance: “I think Aaron Rodgers thought Greg Jennings was going to run a different route than what he did.”
It makes me want to shake him and say, “You’re saying “what” too much, Troy. You don’t have to say “what” so much. You’re an announcer, and you’re smarter than Brian Baldinger and Matt Millen and Tim Green and you shouldn’t be butchering the English language like that. I don’t care if you’re a first ballot Hall-of-Famer, that isn’t an excuse. Now get it together,” as security dragged me away and/or Troy pummeled me mercilessly. I often wonder if anyone has told him about the unnecessary “whats” or if anyone cares or if they won’t say anything cuz he’s Troy Aikman or if he knows and is just doing it out of spite.
Just had to get that off my chest.
chiggins
Keith Jackson was the man. And at least Fouts wasn’t a totally annoying sidekick.
lol chikinburd
Whenever I see Gruden I imagine I’m seeing Neil Patrick Harris playing Gruden in NFL: The Musical.
I know I’m not the only one.
frankdawg81
Add Vin Scully to the list of guys that could do a decent job of covering a game. Ray Scott & Summeral – its all down hill from there.
The worst part of MNF (besides the endless adulation for some player on each team) is that these clowns never shut up. There is not one second of silence, never any anticipation, never any reflection just yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap
bedtimeforbonzo
Fun football thread.
Agree entirely frankdawg81’s MNF criticism: “The worst part of MNF (besides the endless adulation for some player on each team) is that these clowns never shut up. There is not one second of silence, never any anticipation, never any reflection just yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap.”
The shame of it is, MNF this season (excluding last night) has gotten some really dramatic games that “these clowns” don’t realize can largely stand on their own merit. It’s the bad games that need the filler.
I was expecting more from Gruden. Less cheerleading, more criticism, better analysis. But as someone upthread mentioned, his enthusiasm makes up for a lot.
This MNF crew is the best in years. Kornheiser was terrible. Dennis Miller jerked himself off the whole game. Joe Theisman was those two guys with football knowledge.
It’s funny how bland the top color guys for CBS and Fox are. Phil Simms seems likable enough, but adds nothing to a broadcast. Troy Aikman is solid, but nothing special. So I’ll go with NBC’s Cris Collingsworth even though he can be a twit — at least he keeps your attention and is an improvement over Madden who became stale years ago.
I believe Charles Davis has been elevated to Fox’s No. 2 team this year. He isn’t a big name, but is very, very good. He is on NFL Network a lot and is smart and quite insightful.
Of the top play-by-play men, I’d go with Tirico, perfect three-in-a-booth traffic cop and astute. Al Michaels has become tiresome. Joe Buck is too “announcery” for me.
I know he overdoes it with his signature “Oh, my!” calls, but Dick Enberg has always been one of my favorite football voices.
flukebucket
I love Gruden. He knows football and his enthusiasm knows no bounds.
But more times than not I will mute the TV when I watch football. The constant chattering gets on my nerves.
JoePo
When he’s on camera, Gruden doesn’t know what to do with his face. He’s like the twitchy robots they used for Cage and Travolta on the operating table in Face/Off. It’s endlessly entertaining.
xochi
Isn’t the UPS guy Steve Perry from Journey?
Kahomono
You watch commercials during football games? That’s so 2004.
Get a DVR. Record every game you want to see, adding 1 hr of “slop” to the end. Start watching one hour after kickoff, from the beginning. This gives you enough cushion to fast-forward through every commercial break and through all the gum-flapping at halftime. If you run out of cushion, pause the game, take a half-hour break and resume.
You will usually finish within a few minutes of the real-time end of the game.