TV Commentator Rankings

Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston and Tony Siragusa, Fox
This is a very strange team. I caught them in one terrific game. This was in Week 6, Eagles at Jets, and Matt Vasgersian filled in for Albert, who was up with the No. 1 team, subbing for Joe Buck, who was doing baseball. Actually that's one of the things that made it better for me, because Albert has just about given up on down and distance accuracy or trying to spot defensive plays, which means I have to go back to the tape and catch up on all the stuff I didn't get. So I was glad he was absent.

And the boys were on a roll this time, finding a very clear angle on the game ... Jets were killing the Eagles on cutback running in the first half, but then when Philly adjusted to it, New York still tried to push it and got stopped. And, obviously trying to avoid having Pennington put the ball up, failed when they had no choice. A good, neat little picture, and even Goose, who combines analysis with his sideline job, was on top of it.

I don't want to belabor their failures, incident by incident, in that nasty, nagging way, so I'll summarize. For a guy who did a lot of the down and dirty stuff on the field, Johnston seems more at home talking about coverages, etc., than the real meat-and-potatoes elements of the game. Come on, Moose, find a lineman to talk about every now and then, or one of the tough guys on defense. Presumably that job is left to the Goose, but he has had a strange metamorphosis in his career, from rebel to hack ... or flack ... choose one.

A couple of years ago, I practically cheered when he took a shot at that artificial device of recalling their Saturday night meeting with still another "fine young man," and telling us how swell he was. "Who cares?" Siragusa said, creating a stir on his team. "All it is is politics." Yeah! Wow! I loved it. But obviously someone at Fox did not, because it became apparent that they must have had a heart to heart with the Goose. You like your job here? You play ball, got it?

Thus, we must listen to drivel such as, " Brett Favre, now there's a class act" ( Green Bay St. Louis), or "All those who said Favre should retire are eating their words," and this was in Week 15 already, when the issue had been hashed to death. And then, of course, there was the typical fallback topic for the intellectually deprived -- "What did you tell them at halftime?" This howler came during the Divisional playoffs, Green Bay vs. Seattle. "At halftime," the Goose said, "I asked Mike McCarthy what he told them, and he said, 'We've got to stick together and stay with it.'" Gosh, what insight! His team happened to be leading, 28-17, at the time.

Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, Fox
The biggest problem is that network boss David Hill, in a moment of crowning arrogance, decided to do away with lineups at the beginning of the game. Thus we learned about injuries and unusual substitutions only during the course of the action, if at all. "The announcers will tell you all that in their stand-up," he said, but it didn't happen. So the first part of each contest became a mystery, alleviated slightly during the post-season when he broke down and allowed a brief scrawl at the bottom of the screen.

The problem was especially acute during the telecasts by this No. 1 team because neither Buck nor Aikman is concerned with telling you much about defense, who made the tackle, who forced the play, etc., and the production style is to get off a play so quickly that you can't even see the uniform numbers of the people involved. Thus, it is always with a sinking heart that I approach a game this team is working, if I happen to be especially interested in it.

Aikman is very good in breaking down, right, matters of pass and catch, although he's too nice. Well, what the hell, he always was a nice guy, and I certainly didn't complain when he was playing and he made my job so much easier. But gosh, if I hear him say, "You are exactly right, Joe," one more time, I'm going to find someone innocent to yell at.

Buck? How can he be so knowledgeable about baseball and not about our own sport? Believe me, he wouldn't last, trying to bring the same knowledge to the diamond, where the announcing is on such a higher plane.

I have a whole bunch of platitudes I collected from a season of listening to this team. New England Dallas contest ("I think that's going to be a heck of a game"). Jerry Glanville ("Quite a character"), and so forth. But why be miserable, just for its own sake? ("Because you're a miserable character to begin with," says the nagging voice, and you can just shaddup, OK?)