They Hate Us; They Really, Really Hate Us

Good for me! I’m from Mexico and I don’t get to hear them.
The guys we hear here are Raul Allegre, Alvaro Varela and another guy and they’re actually pretty good.

Chandus-When can you teach me Spanish so I don’t have to listen to the crap-sandwich that will be served on ESPN?

I saw that report earlier today and my jaw dropped open. Living in their territory now will be a little more unbearable.
They are already talking about the SB next year as if it is a given. A few years go everyone, and i mean everyone, picked the skins after they had a huge off season and 2 first rounders (arrington and samuels). As i recall, they went 8 and 8, falling apart after losing to Dallas on MNF. Man, would I love to see history repeat itself. They are even more delusional at this point. We’ll see what happens in the off season.

Sean:
First you need to have the latinoamerican ESPN on your cable provider. If you have it, I’m 100% willing to start giving out some lessons, LOL.

Chandus-I’ve started my Spanish lessons already by watching that wacky show on Telemundo with the fat(muy gordo) guy. They have hot (caliente) chicks and the occasional nip-slip.

Telemundo… That chanel has to be as ugly as hearing that announcing crew tandem, we latinoamerican people aren’t proud of that channel, I have seen it when I’m changing channels, so I know that it exists.

I will make a recommendation to all Cowboys fans for next season. If you want to watch MNF, please go to a restaurant or bar that broadcasts the game on their TV’s. The reason is two-fold. One, for every person that does this who would have watched the game at home, it will be one less screen for their ratings. The ratings are calculated off of the number of sets tuned into the game, not the number of eyeballs watching a given TV. It may not seem like much, but if everyone does it at least it won’t help ESPN any.

The second point is more of a qualitative one. I would prefer the din and chatter of fellow patrons over the insepid tones of Theismann & Co., and I am sure most of you would too. At least when a loudmouth Redskins fan shoots off his mouth at the bar you can glare at him and shoot daggers his way to shut him up and show him how unappreciated and his opinion is. If he keeps it up, and is too loud or obnoxious he may even get tossed out.

I did this with a group of Eagles fans a few years ago during the first play of the Eagles’ first preseason game with T.O. against the Ravens when T.O. scored on a bomb from McNabb. One little dweeby kid shot off his mouth when T.O. scored about how he hoped “All the Cowboys fans are watching this”. I turned around, slammed down my margarita, and glared straight at him as I stood up. It was hilarious to see him squirm, backpedal, dart his eyes around, and try to play it off when he saw me. I kept staring at him and said “I know at least one did.” He apologized for his obnoxious outburst saying he was overcome with elation about T.O. I told him to keep it in check, then I winked at his girl as she laughed nervously at the whole thing. You can’t have that kind of fun when you are stuck listening to Theismann at home!!

Theisman and Maguire have always pi**ed me off…especially Theisman, Monday Night Football is watched by millions and I predict it will not take long for ESPN to be forced to make some changes……

The plot thickens….

Evidently, according to this article, Al Michaels decided to leave ABC/ESPN/Disney because he was “uncomfortable” with the “vision” of where MNF was going. LOL. Can’t say I blame him for that one. It is quite a coup that a guy of his talent and experience would leave the network he has worked for 30 years with, including 20 years on MNF, to go to NBC. This is going to mess up ABC’s NBA commentary too. Funny. Wonder how much of it had to do with potentially working with both Theismann and Kornheiser?

The article is here:

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/5316224

The MUTE button will be in play across America for MNF. I watch games and fights quite a bit with the MUTE button on. Maybe, I can get the Cowboy announcers on my computer for their games. I’ll give it a try.

You know, Tirico wasn’t that bad on the one game he did last year. A retarded monkey would be more insightful than Paul Maguire.

The disturbing part of this news is that Suzy Kolber AND Michele Tafoya? Christ. I gotta figure out a way to sync up MNF with whatever local feed there is on the radio.

Sterling,

NBC looks smart early on. They’ve stolen Madden and early word was Bob Costas was on board. What I don’t know is if they want Michaels to do play by play and Costas as pregame host, a la, James Brown or Berman. That would work well for them.

Raf—

Kornheiser! This is a joke, right? Like when guys sneak onto fan sites and say they heard Bledsoe got hurt, stuff like that, right? Right?

What surprises me is the lack of any new blood I mean any…..these announcers are all tired and old……kinda like
watching a porn with Ron Jeremy in it.

Sean said: “Chandus-Iâ€â"¢ve started my Spanish lessons already by watching that wacky show on Telemundo with the fat(muy gordo) guy. They have hot (caliente) chicks and the occasional nip-slip.”

By the way, you’re watching Univision, not Telemundo. I work for the Austin affiliate, and I find it hard to get work done when that show is on.

Poke

Mo,

My ears wish this was funny.

Kornheiser is gonna make Dennis Miller look good. Mark my words. He has no idea what he’s in for. Football fans have some expectation of expertise. Some.

I can’t see that this buffoon has any.

Hey guys of subject, I am from the Rio Grande Valley, in South Texas, and I just wanted to announce to anyone who is from this region that a lot of Dallas Cowboys players are coming down here for autograph signings and you can take photos with them. So far I met, within the last month, (Lousaka) Polite, Flozell Adams, Terrence Newman, Marion Barber III, Tyson Thompson, and Bradie James. I believe they are coming down here because they are seeing a doctor to get a lasik procedure. However, there coming and it is awesome because you get to see them personally and close. I met Bradie and Tyson yesterday, and man Bradie is probable the best person I have met so far. He was really cool and even got the mic and started answering questions from the audience. Also, on February 23, Jacques Reeves, Nate Jones, and a special big guest is going to appear. I got some scoop that it might me Larry Allen, but I will confirm later on. Well guys thatâ€â"¢s about it, I’ll check back if any of you guys makes any comments about the players and what location they do the signings. Post emails so that I can send some pics, I am not lying.

two things:

1. tomorrow ESPN will annouce that Sonny Jurgensen will operate the sky cam while Billy Kilmer flies the blimp above the stadium. too bad George Allen has gone on to the Big Stadium in the Sky or he could have a job too, I’m sure.

2. more importantly, ESPN seems to be following right in ABC’s sad wake. ABC made the mistake of thinking the announcers MATTER, that people expect MNF to be celebrity and schtick. wrong, as its declining ratings and revolving door announcer booth so clearly showed. yet instead of going solid football ESPN gets a badly trained babboon and a member of the Arrogance Hall of Fame’s first class. now that football is on a “sports” channel you’d think they would give us the best sports. how long till they learn?

One of the networks should try broadcasting games with no announcers, but with just crowd noise, a view of the scoreboard between plays.

Tirico is ok as a B-level play-by-play guy doing college games. For NFL it is going to sound like amateur hour, especially in contrast to a seasoned pro like Al Michaels. Kornheiser must have been added because they realized that Theismann won’t be able to hold down the color in a 2-man booth alone and they needed someone other than McGuire to pair him with to differentiate this booth from the old ESPN Sunday Night Football gang. Supposedly, ESPN’s marketing idea is to hype the MNF game all day long on the network, including doing the PTI show from the MNF home team’s stadium as the lead-in to the first evening SportsCenter, thus the choice of Kornheiser to the booth. MNF will be used to pump PTI and the rest of the afternoon talk show lineup, and the lineup will supposedly boost MNF’s ratings.

Kornheiser is a dud all around, he just happens to be marginally better than all the other ESPN afternoon talk show lineup guys. Anyone that has seen him on PTI when Wilbon is on vacation knows he is worthless without a foil. How is Theismann going to be that foil when he and Kornheiser are both Redskins lackies? My guess is Kornheiser becomes Theismann’s parrot, or the other way around, or maybe they both end up squawking ESPN’s ratings and Tirico’s career into the gutter. It feels like destiny to me. Way to ruin a great autumn Monday night tradition, Disney.

Lee,

NBC tried this in the early ’80s. Late one season they aired a Jets/Dolphins game without announcers, just crowd noise and graphics giving down and distance.

It didn’t work. The game felt empty. The point was that good announcers matter. They don’t have to overwhelm you, but they need to fit the game into a narrative. Of course, that assumes they know what narratives are, but that’s why the good ones are good and Joe Theismann is not.

Sterling,

Disney/ESPNs strategy isn’t just stupid, it’s suicide.

ESPN is paying over a billion per year for rights. Because they are airing a game on a weeknight during prime time, their rights fees will be much higher than NBC’s for Sunday Nights, even though the Peacock network’s games will reach a much bigger potential audience, given cable market penetration. Their rights fees are almost identical to Fox’s and CBS’s for carrying the entire conference lineups every Sunday.

But they’re ABC’s only connection with the NFL, so to get the Super Bowl ever four years, Disney will absorb HUGE losses, since ESPN will not generate the ratings MNF did on ABC. In order for this to even make one percent of sense, ESPN needed to find a way to maximize their ratings or put another way, to minimize the dropoff from ABC’s ratings. This means going as national as possible in choices of games, announcers and context.

Mining the ESPN afternoon lineup is the last place I’d go for national appeal. Get creative. Find one of your ABC female stars who likes football and put her in the booth. I’d much rather hear Jennifer Garner or Eva Longoria call a game, even if they’re only there to give Joe a stiffy and get him all tongue-tied or to comment on Tom Brady’s looks. That couldn’t be any worse than Kornheiser. And if they knew something about football, all the better.

ESPN is going to take a bath on this. The nation is going to learn just how old and threadbare their collective schtick is.

Think about it. The NFL jockocracy in broadcasting is immense. You’ve got Terry, Howie, Troy, Moose, etc. all the way down to the sixth string announcing teams. CBS, the same thing. NBC will have Madden.

At ESPN the ONLY guy with any football experience will be Theismann. Of all the jock options, they choose Joe and ONLY Joe.

Talk about stupid.

They are killing themselves, I think that’s why Michaels is smart enough to jump ship now. He doesn’t want his legacy besmirched by this circus act. Dennis Miller was bad enough.

They’ll be recasting this lineup after year one, so they may be able to salvage their franchise around the time the license comes up for renewal. I would hope they would have enough faith in Irvin to try him out in the booth for color commentary, but I am probably just dreaming with that one. Otherwise, maybe Fox or NBC will make a run at the Monday night games if ESPN takes a big enough bath on this one. That is if we aren’t fully in an On Demand/TiVo dominated world where the NFL can sell their individual games with imbedded advertising and product placement ala carte direct to the public and make more money than licensing/hedging that risk away with network rights deals.

Bring back Ray Scott. “Anderson. Four yards.” silence until the huddle break. Ahhhhhhhhhh, how great it was.

mlf,

That’s all you really need. One reason Pat Summerall was so good for so long was that he mentored under Scott and emulated him.

I’ll just press the TV mute button and listen to the radio broadcast.

They should just change the name to “ESPN Monday Night Redskins Football” and have the Deadskins play every Monday night!

On the NBC no Broadcasters game i gave
them alot of credit for trying it.Nbc
was also one of the first to have a woman do the play by play for an NFL game.That didn’t work either but at least they tried different things.The
networks are too scared or too dumb to
find any talent on their own thats why
they turn to the print Mediots for
“talent”.
As for Al Michaels jumping ship ….
please!!! He sank the ship.He has been
the play by play guy for 20 years!!!!!
They have partnered that loser with more guys than a drunken Paris Hilton
and still the ratings stink.MNF waits
so long that finally an over the hill
John Madden becomes available they pair him up with micheals and still no
help with the ratings.NBC stay far away from micheals…what a line up
Sun with Michaels followed by Mon. with theismann ugh!!!!!
 great job tags way to kill a game

Lets talk football. Not about the mediots.

I hope the cowboys don’t resign Dan Campbell. I would rather pick up another TE in the mid to late rounds of the draft. If somehow Vernon Davis is on the board when we draft take him. I just couldn’t pass up on a beast like him.

CKnight:
I’m up for the signing of another TE, but a first rounder? Dallas is going to pay big money to Witten in the near future, if you’re not going to pay money to receivers it’s ok, but if you also want a lead receiver it’s not.

This Draft is really deep at TE, I would pull the trigger with Klopfenstein, David Thomas and Cooper Wallace.

Chandus
I know TE is not the biggest need on our team or even close. But Vernon Davis is a super freek he could even play WR in the future.

Vernon Davis could be a beast out at WR in place of Glenn in the red zone.

Problem with Campbell not resigning is that will limit Wittenâ€â"¢s opportunity to make his impact on offense, as was much the case last year. Cowboys had to attempt to keep Bledsoe upright as much as possible with max protection.

Campbellâ€â"¢s found the injury bug of late and may not be worth too much $$, but healthy he can be an asset. It would be good to get him for the league minimum. If not than lets get a plow horse TE mid to late rounds, or heaven forbid a legit blocking FB.

Did JJ run behind a FB at Notre Dame or was he a single back?

A little off topic but what do you guys think of the Mike Martz signing in Detroit? IMO, if he could get any offensive production out of this team that he had with St. Louis, watch out. cause those receivers down there are downright scary. Lets hope Detroit doesn’t get their circus act of a quarterback situation down or it could spell some bad news for the rest of the league. By the way wouldn’t it be fitting, if millen decides to pull a Ditka and trade his whole draft for another Longhorn (Vince). Wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Or maybe he should go after Sinorice Moss or Santonio Holmes too?

LOL. i meant up there.

Rafael,

If ESPN hired Eva or Jennifer, maybe I would actually enjoy it (instead of screaming at the set) when they switched to booth shots instead of keeping the camera on the players.

Hey, maybe they could hire both of them and …

Never mind!

I’ll be back after I take a shower.

2004 when Campbell was injured Witten had his best year. If we fix the O-Line he could do it again. Vernon Davis could play FB/TE/WR.

Raf,

If Vernon Davis is there at 18, would you rather take him or trade down and get Carpenter and Garrett Mills later on in the draft? Hes more of an H-Back so he could play TE too. He’s not the physical Gates like TE like Davis, but we get our future SOLB.

lou c
Maybe we could get Manny Lawson with our second rounder and Vernon Davis with the first.

Why in the world would you take a player at arguably our strongest position when we’ve got such glaring weaknesses at others.

I don’t care if this guy is the next coming of Kellen Winslow…we are not going to take a TE in Round 1.

Anything can happen. We don’t have that many weaknesses. We could sign Fabini, Bently, and Longwell. And draft Vernon Davis 1st, Manny Lawson 2nd, and Anthony Smith in the 3rd.

CKnight,

I think Fabini is under contract, and would have to be traded. I’m not sure, but I think so.

Does anybody think the Jets would trade John Abraham for La’Roi Glover and a 4th round pick? If so, would anyone here like that trade?

And I have a feeling Manny Lawson is going to have a real good combine and not last until our 2nd round pick.

Just some info on Vernon Davis.
460p bench press, 685p squat, 40’’ vert, 40 in 4.41. He has a tone of up side. He could make us a top 5 O when healthy. Only if we upgrade the O-line in FA.

CKnight:
I’d really like Manny Lawson with the 50th pick, but if he isn’t picked in the first round I don’t see him getting past San Francisco, Tennessee, Detroit, Cleveland or Philadelphia as they all need another pass rusher and they are all slated to take one in the 1st Day.

Names like Thomas Howard, Kamerion Wimbley, Spencer Havner and Roger McIntosh sound more real.

Of them Spencer Havner jumps to me the most, I saw him in the Senior Bowl and I liked some of the things I saw, he needs polishing and who better to polish OLB’s than the Tuna?

To everyone saying they will watch MNF next season with the MUTE on. The only problem is you will basically be telling ESPN that you approve of their booth commentary. The Nielson and Arbitron ratings can’t tell if your mute is on or off, but they can tell what you are watching. By even tuning your TV into that channel, ESPN will only know that you are watching, and that is all they need to tell their sponsors and keep their ratings up.

If you want them to suffer for their stupidity, please at least consider going to a friend’s house to watch the game so they split one household in the ratings. The best choice is to find a local place to watch it, since the game will be on anyway.

I really hope that lineup bombs in the ratings and gets replaced. I can’t stand the thought of more than one season of those clowns.

lou c:
Yes, Fabini is under contract, before the 2002 season he signed a 5 year deal, at that time he was a red hot name, so he signed a high cap deal, now 4 years of that deal have passed and this has to be the higher cap year of his deal.

The Jets by March 3 will be over the salary cap for more than 20 millions, the expansion of the salary cap is expected to be in the range of 10 millions, they need to cut some players and Fabini fits squarely as he’s on his final year and the prorated signing bonus of his deal would be a minor loss compared to his salary.

Since Rafael mentioned him, he surfaced in my radar and now he’s among the top players for the OLine overhaul.

My top players:
LeCharles Bentley – C/G
Justin Hartwig – C
Jason Fabini – RT
Tom Ashworth – RT

As you see, now Bentley is in the top, I just didn’t remembered that he can also play Guard and he can be pretty good at it. And the best and more important thing, he wants out of New Orleans and he’s expected to walk out.

Rafael:
The game probably would be empty with zero announcers. Also, the TV cameras focus on a limited area of the field, and can’t show all the players, so announcers can help in describing action missed by the camera(s).
To me, this sport is much more limited by TV than, for example, basketball, or baseball, because views of the receivers competing, and winning or losing their individual battles, against the defensive secondary, are missed, or shown after the play.
Watching a game from the stands always will be better than watching from in front of a TV. New forms of interactivity with the TV(e.g., allowing viewer control of cameras) could help. When that happens, changing the sound option from ‘Theismann and Kornheiser’ to ‘crowd noise only’ also presumably would be possible(and, apparently, popular with the readers of your blog).

Lee:
That’s when I regret the fact that I’m living in México, even when I’m not going to hear that horrid crew, experiencing NFL games in the stands is something that I’ll accomplish in time but it isn’t close.

Chandus:
It would be easier for you to travel to a game than for me. I’m in New Zealand.

Lee:

That’s really cool!! This team really brings the coolest people together, no matter where we all come from.

LeCharles Bently would give us a young stud on the O-Line. Something that is obviously needed with Allen and Rivera not getting any younger.

I’m from Canada ey.

I just read where NBC had hired both the MNF producer and director before they got Michaels.Is it any wonder announcing s-cks it’s the same crap over and over …….but hey Dickhead Ebersol was considering(for a nano-sec
I am sure)putting Collingsworth in the booth with Madden but then Micheals
became available for a cartoon and some Olympic highlights.Can’t wait for
MNF on sunday nites

Sterling:
Cowboy scouts should research an NZ rugby player/kicker named Luke McAllister. Last night in the rain in Auckland, I finally saw him miss a kick, by 1 foot to the right. He’d made his previous kick, on which he’d slipped and had hit the ground hard, and had also made the 3 kicks before that, all in moderately heavy rain.
I was told that he probably will be the 2nd string at his position on the NZ national rugby team(the All Blacks) because of the other aspects of his game(tackling, passing, and running with the ball). He seems to have a very strong, accurate leg and, if he were the last man between Tyson Thompson and the goalline, he’d have a much better chance to make the tackle than Jay Feely…don’t know about Shaun Suisham…

You guys are nuts.
Kornheiser is going to be great.
He’s smart, hilariously funny, and hates Joe Theisman. He doesn’t suffer fools, and knows his sports.
He’s supportive of the redskins, but loathes danny snyder.
I’ve been a fan of his for decades, and I think this is going to be great.

This could be some of the greatest TV ever. Kornheiser vs Theisman wiht Tirico refereeing.

There’s already been a TV series (failed) produced and aired about Kornheiser’s life and his column, starring george costanza.
PTI is the highest rated ESPN production week in and out for years.
He has an amazing local radio show that’s the best sports radio i’ve ever heard – Mike and Mike, Dan Patrick, Colin Cowherd, and the Fox broadcasters don’t compare. Well, Dan Patrick compares, and his hour with Olberman is pretty great.
Kornheiser was named the most difficult personality to work with at ESPN. He once got into a lengthy fight with ESPN brass, so he spent an entire radio braodcast talking about his favorite kinds of olives – they eventually let him out of his contract.
His columns in the Style section of the Post are some of the best ever in the paper.
He’s the best sports personality in his profession. Wilbon is too nice, and the heads on Around the Horn are too thin substance-wise to compare to Kornheiesr.
If you like Cosell’s quick wit and world-wise comments, then you’re going to like Kornhieser. IF you want Moose talking Xs and Os and telling locker room tales of heroism, then 1. you’re a boring dolt, and 2. you don’t understand entertainment.

He’s a savvy media guy, he’ll make this work.

I can’t wait for him to insult Theisman, and Theisman won’t even know. I have the over/under on subtle digs on Theisman at 6 per show.
I bet Theisman cold cocks him before the end of the season.

joey2zs:

I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic with your praise of Kornheiser or not. Some of it seems serious, but some of it looks like you have to be joking about how great he is. I will assume you are joking though.

I like Moose talking X’s and O’s and locker room tales when I watch a football game, not some guy who thinks saying the word ‘Uranus’ like a child would on TV is funny. If that makes me a boring dolt, then whatever, I know a lot of people who would agree that little kid jokes aren’t what they tune in to a game to hear. I think I have a pretty firm grasp on entertainment too, seeing as I have spent most of my career in the industry.

Gee…he spent an entire radio show talking about olives…what a savvy media guy.

i’m not being sarcastic. I’m a huge fan of Kornheiser.

Joey2zs,

I’m going off a small sample size I’ve seen the three or four times I’ve seen PTI and he comes off as another face in the blowhard crowd. But if he is what you say then somebody at ESPN has figured it out. Because what made the Dandy/Howard pairing work was that they were a natural comic duo who were always on each other. It made for great comedy and drama even when the games sucked.

If Kornheiser is willing to take two quarters each week to slowly make Joe look like a buffoon I’ll gladly watch. I can’t imagine Joe or Tirico would have the brains or the guts to intervene.

Because, as you said, that would be entertainment, which is what MNF has been lacking for, oh, about 20 years since Howard left. I’m still not convinced that the numskulls at ESPN thought of this all on their own, but I’ll take a happy accident any day.

joey2zs,

If you like Cosell’s quick wit and world-wise comments, then you’re going to like Kornheiser. …

Just what we need! Someone who considers himself to be the most important subject of the broadcast.

… IF you want Moose talking Xs and Os and telling locker room tales of heroism, then 1. you’re a boring dolt, and 2. you don’t understand entertainment.

Right! What a terrible thing it is to have a knowledgeable and communicative person explain the football game I happen to be watching.

If I want comedy, I’ll watch the Comedy channel. If I want erudition, I’ll watch PBS. If I want the arts, I’ll watch Ovation. When I watch a football game, I really would rather not have second-rate ‘entertainers’ wasting my time with their boring, obnoxious, and futile attempts at profundity. The game is the ‘entertainment’, not the announcers.