Coordinators are ready for their close-up

TV CONTINUES to present incontrovertible proof that no bad idea is unworthy of duplication then perpetuation.

A few years ago, TV determined that every play beyond the ordinary should be followed by a shot of the offensive or defensive coordinator or special teams coach, as if he, alone, was responsible, good or bad.

Saturday, although the Eagles cautiously avoided a Falcons’ punt, the ball landed with a crazy bounce, then glanced off two unsuspecting Eagles before Atlanta recovered.

Such occurs, go figure, because the football is pointy at both ends. Good luck, bad luck, end of story.

But on NBC, where Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth first noted that the ball acted like popping corn, it became something else, something deeper.

Collinsworth: “The Falcons’ special teams, for the second straight week, are having a major impact on this game.”

Michaels: “And Keith Armstrong is their special teams coach. And some teams have had their eyes on him as a potential head coach.”

Suddenly, this turnover was, to some great degree, the work of a coach.

TV thinks so much of us that come bowl games and the NFL playoffs it believes that what we couldn’t normally see — two, three and four things at once, and with shrunken views — we can see in January, as if like snakes shedding their skin, our growth of additional sets of eyes is seasonal.

Does it not strike any network that to reduce the viewing surface to show two things at the same time invites us to see one thing half as well, and perhaps, left to quickly guess from which of two or more reduced view things to choose, we see nothing?

Do these folks actually preview or review what they televise? Have they never asked the person on their left to cease talking so they can hear the person on their right? Or do they figure that as long as eyes and ears come in twos, dilly, dilly!