BRING THE NOISE
TV analysts flood airwaves with the inane and useless
LET’S say we were all suffering from an easily curable affliction, say, trench foot. Would the Department of Health issue a directive that we not only continue to wear saturated shoes and socks, we pre-soak them?
So why is it that what TV’s sports viewers can’t endure — announcers who don’t shaddup, an easily fixable irritant — has worsened, become an epidemic? Why do those who produce live television dismiss or forget the same thing: It’s television!
Tony Romo, CBS’s first-year and new lead NFL analyst — risky stuff — has been eager to please, informing us what goes on in huddles, suspected plays to come, and with a breezy sense of humor. But his strengths are diminished, if not lost, because we’ve neither the time nor inclination to sort the wheat from the chaff because he doesn’t stop talking!
Three months in and CBS still doesn’t know this? It can’t help him be the best he can — and get return on its investment — by having him take some self-evident plays off to breathe and to cut our nerves a break?
What should have been a compelling game, Friday — 4-7 Pitt defeating flat, 10-0 Miami — became a consumer’s chore as ABC/ESPN analyst Brock Huard delivered windy, often contradictory speeches after every play.
At 3-0, Pitt, early, Huard delivered his game manifesto that proved long, irrelevant, easy — Miami was favored by 14 — and dead wrong:
“I’ll tell ya this; I don’t have any fear, today, of Miami looking past this game and getting to that one [Miami-Clemson, next week on, of course, ESPN].
“I don’t see it happening; as many closely contested ballgames as they’ve had, this season, and as much grit as they’ve shown, I don’t think that’s going to be the issue here for four quarters.”
Such orations, even following a 2-yard run, never ceased. Huard found dozens of protracted ways to explain that incomplete passes have hurt Miami.
Even sideline reporter Allison Williams figured we tuned in to hear her lengthy, redundant and superfluous speeches. At 10-7, Pitt:
“Players, coaches I’ve talked to from Miami say there is no panic from this team, and I think you’re seeing it, here, today, with the struggles, especially on the offensive side of the ball.
“I haven’t seen any frustration from any of these guys. They’ve remained calm and kind of business-like, here on the Miami sideline.”
At 17-7, Pitt early fourth, Williams, again:
“‘In the fourth quarter and we’re down 10, but we’re fine. We can do this.’ That has been the message from the Miami coaches, here on the sidelines, telling their guys we’ve been down before but you just have to keep pounding.
“‘And do not flinch. You haven’t flinched all year. Don’t flinch now!’ So Miami really calling on the experiences of being in close games, right now.” Good grief. FOX’s Ohio St.-Michigan — a great football tradition diminished from its start as OSU wore unrecognizable uniforms on Nike’s (money) orders — gave analyst Joel Klatt the opportunity to replace simple, pigskin English with absurd new-age, longform prattle.
On successive plays, a 6-yard gain, a 1-yard loss, he spoke neither, choosing OSU “was able to gain positive yardage on first down,” then, “not able to gain positive yardage.”
The first was redundantly ridiculous, the second was worse.
When OSU backup redshirt freshman QB Dwayne Haskins completed his first pass, and for a first down, Klatt exclaimed, “This is his skill set, [why] the coaching staff trusted him!”
Trusted him? Ohio St. recruited him not knowing if he could throw a pass? And OSU was down, 20-14, in the third; it was third-and-13! Did Klatt expect a punt?
And Klatt knows and sees the games well; he just chooses to make bloated nonsense of them, no one who knows better to tell him to cut it.
But despite such television-incompatible noise, TV’s shot-callers must know what they’re doing.