Click on the appropriate year to take a look back at the 2000, 1999 or 1998 TV Commentator
Awards.
Presenting the Dr. Z Fourth Annual TV Commentator Awards. And I want to say
that 2001 has brought a welcome change because no longer are we pestered by
those endless and meaningless shots of the overhead blimp. I am especially
sensitive to this blimp thing since I am very close to being one myself.
I won't get into the long preamble I inflicted on you last year, but I have to gripe about one thing. The sideline reporters.
Oy, what a waste of time! What do you have to do to win, coach? What did
you tell them at halftime? What will you change for the second half?
Endless idiot lockstep. But this doesn't really bother me as much as those
reports during the game itself. It's always a race. Will he (or she) finish
his or her little story before the next play starts? Sometimes they don't make
it and you just want to sweep them off the screen so you can catch the snap of
the ball. I've actually seen CBS neglect entire plays so its sideline guy,
Armen Keteyian, could finish his shpiel. I feel very sorry for Ron
Pitts, the sideline flunky for the Madden-Summerall team. Now this
is a talented person, a winner of a PZ Five-Star award last year. For god's
sake, get him back into the booth where he
belongs.
Here, then, are my ratings, five stars (the best), down to zero. Analyst listed
first, then the play-by-play
man.
FIVE STARS
Chris Spielman and Mark Jones, ESPN: What's that you say? You haven't
seen them doing any NFL games? That's because they didn't do any. They did
low-level college games. I mention the team because Spielman is the best, slam
dunk, hands down. In the Marshall vs. Toledo MAC championship he called a fake
field goal BEFORE it happened. He was picking up tips and calling runs
and passes ahead of time. Amazing.
Bill Maas and Sam Rosen, Fox: Tied at the top of my NFL ratings last
year, they're now by themselves because the competition has dropped away. A
smooth team that works well together. Maas is one of the few announcers who can
pick out zone vs. man coverage on the first look and still give you the nuances
of line play. I'd call him a Matt Millen clone. Even sounds like
Matt. Refuses to blindly hype the superstars as most of them do. Will get
caught up in the emotion of a contest involving serious hitting, i.e., New
Orleans vs. New England, just as I do. I also like his sense of humor. On the
Vikings' sloppy tackling in the Philly game: "I don't think their pads are
working this week." Rosen is a blessing to my charts because he is
meticulous in telling you who's in the game and who's out, particularly on
nickel and dime
defenses.
FOUR STARS
Brian Baldinger and Curt Menefee, Fox: Dropped from last year's
five-star ranking. I don't want to come down too hard on Baldy because few
people work as hard at it or watch as much film as he does. But I think some
genius at the network must have gotten hold of him in the offseason and told him
he'd never escape from the tedium of low-level games unless he started hyping
the stars and pushing the entertainment aspect of the contests. So his usually
painstaking approach has slipped. He'll misidentify people to give the
superstar a plug. When the Bears' Anthony Thomas broke a 46-yard run
against the Bengals, he said, "It's all Anthony Thomas," despite the
fact that the guy didn't break a tackle and I picked out four good blocks at the
point. I'm being tough on Baldy because I respect his knowledge of the game and
want him to get back to the five-star level. I liked this line of his on the
low-running style of the Redskins' Stephen Davis: "He's running
underneath the radar screen." Or on a typical fumbling, stumbling
announcement by the ref, Larry Nemmers: "If this was the Academy
Awards show, they'd have booted him off the stage." Note to Curt Menefee,
who's usually a careful play-by-play guy: Watch how you spot the ball. You've
been off by as much as eight yards and that's about the
record.
Solomon Wilcots and Ian Eagle, CBS: I didn't see that many of their
games, and in the beginning of the season Eagle annoyed me because of his down
and distance inaccuracy, but he improved. Wilcots made the trip from the
sideline to the booth and what he brought was an intricate feel for the passing
game, particularly his overview. In the Titans-Browns game, right away he picked
off the weakness in Cleveland's attack. "Their short passing game is no
good. The defensive backs can jump it because the Browns can't go long."
Absolutely.
THREE AND A HALF STARS
Daryl Johnston, Troy Aikman, Dick Stockton, Fox: Johnston is a
superior talent, who sacrificed a bit of his own glory by his dedication to
picking up the blitzes for Aikman, just as he did in their playing days. Troy
was feeling his way in the early going. It was his first year in the booth. He
was a bit tentative on his calls, especially when a rip was called for, but as
the season progressed he became more bold and more sure of himself. He's
terrific on instant identification of zones and pass routes, but he does it in
such a matter-of-fact way that you hardly notice how good he is. So why isn't
this a four-star team? Now it gets tough because Dick is a real nice guy. But
in one game I counted 42 errors in down and distance or spotting the ball. And
it doesn't help to repeat on every kickoff, "It's an end over end
kick." They all are. And more, which I won't get into. One thing he
did begin to do, though, and which most of the others don't, was identify
substitutes as they came in. Which I'd suspect was done at the urging of the
show's director, Artie Kempner, a football guy who cares about stuff
like
this.
THREE STARS
Jeff Lageman and Ray Bentley, Fox: Maybe I'm going a bit high here
because I remember both these guys as players and I used to like talking to them
in the locker room. I still get the feeling that they're talking to me when I
hear them do a game. Rough-hewn but honest, with a minimum of hype and a
maximum of serious attention to the action on the
line.
Craig James and Kevin Harlan, CBS: This was the most improved team
during the course of the year. In the beginning they were tough to listen to.
Harlan was off on his yardage and even on the statistics, which I guess wasn't
his fault, but still. James, who moved over from his position as studio
analyst, was shaky, particularly when he tried to tell you what was going on up
front. And he didn't have much conviction, either. When the Jets' Mo Lewis
speared Bills QB Rob Johnson and Harlan asked him, "Is this
fineable?" James, who came on like a tough guy in the studio, copped out
with, "Well, at least it's reviewable." Gosh. But then things
changed. By Week 9 everything was shipshape, and their Chiefs-Jets game was a
pleasure to listen to. Harlan had tightened up his calls and was careful to
tell you who was on the field at all times. (Don't laugh. Not many of them
bother with subs.) James was calling the blocks on the line and picking up his
zone vs. man coverages. I'd be happier if he'd drop that
"slobberknocker" thing he's so fond of, but that's just me. Frankly,
the term gets me a little nauseated.
Dan Fouts, Dennis Miller, Al Michaels, ABC: Last year I gave this team
two separate rankings, with and without the professional comic. OK, I've said
my piece and there isn't much more to say. I'm trying to be absolutely honest
and lay personal prejudice aside, and what earned this crew its three stars was
the fact that the technical advantages, for instance, the extra cameras, make
this, visually, a superior presentation to watch. I mean, you can really see
more. They try to mess it up, of course, with the extra-long lineup intros,
which leak onto the live action; ditto the Melissa Stark nonsense on
the sidelines. As for the commentary, Dan Fouts is excellent as long as they
leave him alone. I'd love to see him working a game with just one other guy and
supplying any needed humor by himself because he can be a pretty funny fellow.
At one time Michaels was the best at spotting the ball. Now he doesn't seem to
care as much, and they don't even worry about announcing every play as it
happens. That's how caught up they are in the entertainment aspect of the
thing. As for the rest of it, well, once upon a time someone must have said
that using big words is a terrific form of humor (actually it's a style that
predates vaudeville) or at least it'll convince the low IQ types that you're a
very intelligent person. Thus we have observations such as this one from the
Jets-Raiders playoff: " Bill Parcells has put his seal of
imprimatur on Curtis Martin ... " An imprimatur is a license to
publish. A seal of license? I'm sure that this kind of gibberish goes over
real big at the
network.
TWO AND A HALF STARS
Steve Tasker and Don Criqui, CBS: Tasker has gotten better and he
isn't afraid to speak his mind. In the Kansas City-Arizona game, he nailed a
dumb Dave McGinnis challenge right away, pointing out that even
Jake Plummer was giving his coach the don't challenge signal. Criqui is a
familiar old pro, with a limited vocabulary. A run is always a
"gash," a tackle is a "knockdown." Enough
already.
Trevor Matich and Bill Macatee or Craig Bolerjack, CBS: I didn't get
enough looks, really, but I like Matich's dedication and enthusiasm, and I like
the way he handled the last frantic moments of Buffalo-San Diego. Macatee would
make me happier if he paid more attention to spotting the ball correctly, and I
guess you've heard this before, but honestly, how tough is it, if you're really
paying
attention?
TWO STARS
Dan Dierdorf and Dick Enberg, CBS: Always push the big names, always
speak in superlatives, that's Dan's style. Jacksonville at Baltimore, the
Ravens have just driven the length of the field, mostly on the ground. Then the
Jags' linebacker, Kevin Hardy, makes one good play: "You can't
play much better than he's playing right now." And the endless
pronouncements about whichever star they happen to be covering that week.
"If there's a better (fill in the blank ... quarterback, linebacker,
runner) in the game today, I want to know his name," etc. Dan knows his
football and he does bring a certain energy to his presentation, but, whew, that
hype. Dick? Well, he's Dick, everybody's grandfather. They're lining up,
first and goal, and he's telling us about some guy's college
roommate.
Phil Simms and Greg Gumbel, CBS: This is tough because Phil is a
friend, and I respected him greatly as a player -- and as a novice announcer
before he began hearing the angel music. But now that he's part of CBS' No. 1
team, things have changed. For one thing, it's very tough when I hear that this
team will be doing an important game because it means that I'll have to go back
over the tape to find out exactly what happened. Gumbel simply can't be
bothered to get his yardage right or tell you who made the tackle or even to
present every play. The melody of his and Phil's opinions is the one tune you
hear endlessly repeated, the slavish dedication to the old storyline. I'll give
you one example. Jets vs. Raiders, last game of the regular season. A
storyline has developed that the Raiders' "big defensive line" is
simply overpowering the Jets and jamming up everything they want to do. Over
and over again we hear this from Simms. The big defensive line consists of one
big player, tackle Grady Jackson. The rest of them? Regan Upshaw,
260, Tony Bryant, 275, and Rod Coleman, who, at 285, is
one of the smallest DTs in the league. And with Darrell Russell gone,
it was one of the NFL's smallest
D-lines.
Tim Green and Kenny Albert, Fox: Green has cut down on the platitudes,
which used to turn every game into a sermon, but he rides the old hypemobile
very hard. Albert does a reasonably competent job. When they're on their game,
it's fairly smooth going, as long as no deep analysis is called
for.
Brent Jones and Gus Johnson, CBS: Johnson doesn't concern himself with
yardage and he annoys me by describing practically every punt as
"wobbly." Hey, they can't all wobble. Jones is enthusiastic but given
to bouts of hysteria when the action on the field gets heated. Both of them
could use a little more study on the
rules.
ONE AND A HALF STARS
Joe Theismann, Paul Maguire, Mike Patrick, ESPN: Well, they've
developed this shtick. Theismann talks sense. He's the teacher. Maguire is
the bad boy in the class throwing spitballs. I'm not exactly sure about
Patrick. He tries to be some kind of analyst and thus neglects much of the
action on the field, which includes describing what's going on. I guess that on
an entertainment level it kind of works, but I'm afraid I don't buy it.
Maguire's deliberate ignorance could be OK on a sitcom, but somewhere along the
line you've got to have some respect for the game or am I being hopelessly
square? Don't get me wrong. Paul is a funny fellow. But he's also a former
linebacker and punter at the pro level, and he has to know more than he lets on.
Personally, I think the act has gotten tiresome. It's like watching a game in
a bar and hearing some guy endlessly yapping nonsense next to
you.
ONE STAR
John Madden and Pat Summerall, Fox: At one time they were the best.
Madden's was the all-seeing eye. His humor was fresh and, at times, startling.
Summerall was the perfect straight man, with an exquisite sense of timing. Now
it's just sad. They don't know that the clock doesn't stop on out-of-bounds
plays. Madden, complaining that they called a field goal 52 yards when everyone
could plainly see that the line of scrimmage had been the 34. "I'm still
calling it 51," he said, not knowing that around eight years ago they
started spotting the ball eight yards back instead of the normal seven. Again,
deliberate ignorance is used as a kind of vehicle. "It's one of those
Pavlov deals, the rat in the maze," he told us one week. All of us learned
about Pavlov and his dogs in high school biology. Sometimes the ignorance isn't
deliberate, it's just stunning. Summerall during the Oct. 21 Minnesota-Green
Bay game: "Do they have a game on Halloween?" No, Pat. They don't
play football on Wednesday nights. But their team carries weight and coaches
and players tell Madden things, and every now and then a nugget is dropped. And
sometimes a flash of the old humor shows. And you smile and remember the good
days.
NOT ENOUGH LOOKS
Sean Jones and Paul Kennedy, Fox; Dave Krieg and Doug Bell, Fox; DJ Johnson and
Scott Graham, CBS; Spencer Tillman and Tim Brando,
CBS.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman covers the NFL for the
magazine and CNNSI.com. His "Inside Football" column and Mailbag appear weekly
on CNNSI.com. To send a question to Dr. Z, click here.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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