Vikings don't want Joe Buck to announce the game

[Crimson Platypus 0]

Not to defend Madden or anything, but that quote could also be used out of context here. If a team is down 10 and it is 4th and 15 from the 32 with 4 minutes to go, it might be said that in that case a FG would be better than (going for) a touchdown.

[Guest The Gecko]

The best announce crew in the NFL is the mute button on my control. None of the crews are worth a damn.

 

Madden used to be good, but I gave up on him when he said, "It's very important to score points if you want to win" and of course, "It's a lot harder to come back from 21-7 than 14-7".

 

Thanks John!

One time Troy Aikman (I believe) lost a contact lens on the field. While they were looking for it, John Madden explained:

 

"Here's a guy that when he puts in his contact lenses, he can see better."

[Guest bigm350]

Joe Buck's a fuckin douchebag. Another thing; have you guys ever noticed how much that announce crew (Buck, Aikman, Collinsworth), are on Bret Favre's nuts? Favre was terrible in that game, and has been mediocre for the last few years, yet everything he does is God-like. After every interception he throws, they make it seem like it wasn't Bret's fault, but the receiver's. And that play where he ran past the first-down marker against the Vikes, and then flipped the ball under hand to a receiver, those guys were saying, "Wow, look at the creativity of Favre", or some other bullshit. If any other QB did that, those guys would rip into them like no tomorrow. Defintely a double standard, and its sickening.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Thing is, most of what they had said regarding the INT's was true. But don't let your blatant bias against Favre stand in the way of your criticism.

[MARTYEWR 0]

Can someone explain the hate for the ESPN crew? I really like them to be honest...

Ridiculously fawning praise for everyone on the field, bordering on verbal fellatio in many cases, particularly for Mike "Barry Sanders" Vick.

Their non-stop fellatio doesn't bother me as much as their inability to actually add anything while calling a game. They're supposed to give INSIGHT into what's going on, not just remind a viewer to watch.

 

For example, say they're showing a replay of a big sack. Instead of showing who missed their block or pin-pointing why the DE got through so quickly, McGuire will just say "Look at this play". Dickhead, I'm already watching the game, and thus will be watching the play regardless if you tell me to or not. Madden, for all his stupid comments, at least still breaks down plays.

 

Of course, having said that, wasn't it Madden that said that a field goal was every bit as good as a touchdown sometimes?

Also, whenever Joe Theismann makes a point, whether (rarely) meaningful or (often) nonsensical, he can NEVER shut up about it. Whether it's what he feels is a blown penalty call, the right penalty call, a key block, a long run, a pocket collapse, you name. The guy can't shut up.

[Precious Roy 0]

Yeah, it was ATH, I think it was Jay Mariotti actually, in a rare moment of intelligence

Mariotti makes more good points than you think.

Yeah probably, he's just so F'n annoying and smug

[nl5xsk1 0]

Dr Z (of Sports Illustrated) gave rankings for all the announce pairings ... not a bad read:

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writ...cers/index.html

 

/probably could have gotten it's own thread, but it just made such sense to include it in this one

[Precious Roy 0]

Oh, and I totally agree about Madden/Michaels pwning the ESPN crew. Maddenisms are a part of the guys charm, I get why people don't get them, you just have to think of the guy as some crazy, drunken old coach who you're watching the game with, and in that context it's a comedy gold mine. Madden is a fucking character. Plus the guy really knows his shit, and he sees the whole field with a coach's eye thus allowing for spot-on analysis, you just have to take the Maddenisms during dead time to get to it. Michaels is a consumate pro, he's got good chemistry with Madden, and he flat out knows how to call a football game. They give the games a bigtime feel that most crews can't bring.

[Precious Roy 0]

On that list, I like Ian Eagle/Solomon Wilcots and Kevin Harlan/Randy Cross from CBS, have heard them call lots of games, but I guess I'm not watching many NFC games or not paying attention or something because I don't recognize the FOX crews he had in the ***-**** range.

[nl5xsk1 0]

My favorite part of the Dr Z link is him giving the worst ranking to the horrid, putrid ESPN crew.

 

It's great to see someone who I respect as a football writer/analyst agree with me.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Can someone explain the hate for the ESPN crew? I really like them to be honest...

Here here.

 

Those guys are funny.

[nl5xsk1 0]

I don't want my football announcers to be funny. I want them to announce the football game. And the three jerkoffs that do the ESPN Sunday night games spend way too much time trying to be funny and way too little time announcing the football game.

[MARTYEWR 0]

My favorite part of the Dr Z link is him giving the worst ranking to the horrid, putrid ESPN crew. 

 

It's great to see someone who I respect as a football writer/analyst agree with me.

That's happened every year, too, in the 7 years Dr. Z has done these.

 

I agree with him on the Buck/Aikman/Collinsworth trio. For the most part this year, Collinsworth seemed less of a tool in recent years, Aikman was solid, and Buck actually seemed to take his passable->good baseball announcing ability and convert it to equal levels of football announcing. But like Dr. Z said, it went to shit in the Minnesota-Green Bay wild card game.

 

I'd say Z's moreless correct with the higher ranked crews. Sadly, where I live, I don't get to see/hear them enough.

[LaParkaMarka 0]

Dr. Z is great. I thought the Fox crew was the best of the lot until the Minnesota game too, that was pretty sad. I don't mind Collinsworth, and Aikman isn't useless. Buck can go eat a bag of crap though.

 

I was also delighted to see Z rip into the garbage ESPN crew. The only time they're funny is when they start trashing each other. "What do you know? What do you know about the running game?" *said in complete disdain by one announcer to another*

 

Ah, one ESPN gaffe I remember well. During the Raiders/Broncos snow game, they start blathering on about how the Broncos will not allow any completions over the middle. Very next play, Porter burns Bailey in the middle for a TD. Very amusing.

[The Czech Republic 0]

It's so weird that ESPN just cannot cover the NFL well.

[LaParkaMarka 0]

When their PBP guy was out at the beginning of the season, IIRC Pat Summerall took over temporarily as the PBP guy. Then the crew was quite tolerable.

[Guest The Winter Of My Discontent]

Fox does not like the Vikings. If it ain't the Eagles or especially the Packers, they will not give the other team the time of day. They were all disappointed by the Packers loss on Sunday. The entire Fox team's reaction to Moss' dance seemed to be precipitated by their favorite team losing, not the act itself.

 

And the announcers are so biased, that they praised and laughed at Favre's FUCKING BONEHEADED illegal pass at the end of the firts half which resulted them being pushed back and missing the field goal. Had he kept running they would've possibly had the first down or a 4 and short 1 situation. Favre laughed about it, and so did all of the announcers. But really, it ended up hurting the team and it was all Bret Favre's fault. But had any other QB done it, or Randy Moss done something stupid like that, he'd have been cricified.

[nl5xsk1 0]

When their PBP guy was out at the beginning of the season, IIRC Pat Summerall took over temporarily as the PBP guy. Then the crew was quite tolerable.

Was it really Summerall, or just old sound bytes from the early Madden video games? I swear, the guy sounded so robotic it was almost laughable.

 

And I disagree that Fox hates the Vikings ... I will agree that they might like the Packers more (as in, "like Favre more") but other than the juvenile antics of Moss it seems that the Fox guys give a lot of love to the Vikings, especially Culpepper & *Moss.

 

 

*unless he's acting like an asshat.

[Vern Gagne 0]

They've all but said that.

 

This is not old hat for fans in MN. Many truely believe there's a conspiracy against the local sports teams. In fact, many insisted Jack Buck hated the Twins back in the 1991 World Series.

Wouldn't the 1987 World Series be the reason for that?

That's makes sense, did Jack Buck do the radio for the 87 World Series?

[KanadianKrusty 0]

The best announce crew in the NFL is the mute button on my control. None of the crews are worth a damn.

Absolutely, you know it's pretty bad when I find the RDS (french TSN) crew(which includes a former CFL player and a frickin' baseball analyst!) better than all the american crews.

[Vern Gagne 0]

When you mute the game, too you not have sound or do you listen to the local or national radio announcers?

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

They've all but said that.

 

This is not old hat for fans in MN. Many truely believe there's a conspiracy against the local sports teams. In fact, many insisted Jack Buck hated the Twins back in the 1991 World Series.

Wouldn't the 1987 World Series be the reason for that?

That's makes sense, did Jack Buck do the radio for the 87 World Series?

I'm not sure, but he did do national radio frequently at the time. Also remember that he was the Cards' radio announcer at the time, so he doubtless announced it for someone.

[AlwaysPissedOff 0]

I don't remember who brought this up, but the hypocrisy here is off the charts considering Buck did those "Leon" commericals shilling Budweiser. I was watching the game at a bar and thus didn't hear the commentary, but he's got a lot of nerve coming down on Moss when he was a part of marketing that type of display.

How is it hypocrisy when the commercial is MOCKING egomaniacs in the first place? Hell, Budweiser's crappy tagline is "True", so Leon's an egotistical dick at heart, therefore he acts like one. Sheesh, those ads aren't exactly rocket science to figure out.

[Guest Rrrsh]

I still can't get over how people are mad at Joe Buck for having an opinion in a job where is opinion is asked for by his bosses.

 

 

Anyone wanna step back and think how dumb that is?

[Precious Roy 0]

I don't remember who brought this up, but the hypocrisy here is off the charts considering Buck did those "Leon" commericals shilling Budweiser.  I was watching the game at a bar and thus didn't hear the commentary, but he's got a lot of nerve coming down on Moss when he was a part of marketing that type of display.

How is it hypocrisy when the commercial is MOCKING egomaniacs in the first place? Hell, Budweiser's crappy tagline is "True", so Leon's an egotistical dick at heart, therefore he acts like one. Sheesh, those ads aren't exactly rocket science to figure out.

those commercials celebrate the "Leon" character, give me a break man. Every one of those commercials had Joe Buck bowing to Leon's whim and doing shit that helped celebrate "leon" the two of them standing back to back to show off their "good sides" and Buck with his "RAMA LAMA DING DONG" shit.

 

what you don't get is that there is no difference between what you call "mockery" and WHY Moss does his shit, it's the very same thing in the end, it's simply meant to entertain.

[Guest bigm350]

Thing is, most of what they had said regarding the INT's was true. But don't let your blatant bias against Favre stand in the way of your criticism.

Its not blatant bias. Its fact. Since the Packers SB win Favre has thrown 11 TDs compareed to something like 16 or 17 INTs. Shows Favre is declining more and more with each passing season. I'm just sick of the Fox fanboys riding his sack still saying he's one of the top QBs in the league, when he's clearly not.

[Crimson Platypus 0]

Thing is, most of what they had said regarding the INT's was true. But don't let your blatant bias against Favre stand in the way of your criticism.

Its not blatant bias. Its fact. Since the Packers SB win Favre has thrown 11 TDs compareed to something like 16 or 17 INTs. Shows Favre is declining more and more with each passing season. I'm just sick of the Fox fanboys riding his sack still saying he's one of the top QBs in the league, when he's clearly not.

Where do you get these numbers? Completely wrong.

 

Since 1997 Favre has throw 195 TDs with 135 INTs so roughly 27 and 19 per year. That's a lot of TDs but waaay too many interceptions.

[sfaJack 0]

I think he was talking about Favre's playoff numbers since the SB win.

 

To me, the disturbing thing about Favre is how he's seemed to regress to 1994 levels with his decision-making. I remember the Cowboys used to always beat the Packers in the early/mid-90's, and in ALL of the games Favre was good for at least two retarded plays. He got out of that during the Packers' peak years, but has seemed to return to it lately. That indicates decline to me.

[AlwaysPissedOff 0]

those commercials celebrate the "Leon" character, give me a break man. Every one of those commercials had Joe Buck bowing to Leon's whim and doing shit that helped celebrate "leon" the two of them standing back to back to show off their "good sides" and Buck with his "RAMA LAMA DING DONG" shit.

 

- That's part of the mockery, the average media person always seems to bow to the egomaniacs so they incorporated it into the commercials. Hence, it's still not hypocrisy for Buck to do them and rag on Moss.

 

Now, to clear this up a bit, I thought Buck overreacted at the whole thing, so I'm not saying he should have said what he did, but linking the Moss thing to the Bud commercials is just searching for a connection that just isn't there.

[the pinjockey 0]

Just as an addition, as it really does not need it's own thread, is anyone finding the response to Moss's reaction to his fine hilarious. People are whining that he is belittling $10,000 when that means a lot to a lot of people.

 

Here was my thought process at the announcement of the fine:

"Whoo hoo, $10,000 sure means a lot to him I bet"

 

Media reaction to slap on the wrist $10,000 fines:

"They really need to start suspending people as these $10,000 fines really don't mean much to millionaires."

 

::Randy Moss points out $10,000 is nothing to him::

 

New media reaction:

"How dare he say $10,000 isn't a lot to him. rabble rabble rabble"

 

I just find it amusing that we can realize that a $10,000 fine is nothing to him, but he is supposed to act like it is the end of his world.