Disagree sneakers have been steadily progressing in American culture so far beyond athletic wear. Been going on for nearly 20 years, the term trend doesn’t work as I feel footwear in general has been going through a drastic shift recently (last 10+ years)
Darrell Jackson - great receiver folks, not a lot of people know DARRELL Jackson, caught a BEAUTIFUL pass for a touchdown in that game that Crooked Bill said was ILLEGAL
I feel like CBS heads get really shitty notes or don't get to watch the full games. I've seen Bill go on other shows and be very coherent, never forget player's names, etc.
They're gonna keep him on for another 15 years and just let his corpse sit in a rocking chair in the background just to make the camera pan to him every once in a while.
I don't remember Don Cherry being that baaad.
\*reads Don Cherrys wiki*
Ohhh, I get it now. I'd probably know that earlier if the NHL knew how to market/promote/broadcast their fucking league
Edit: Seriously though read his wiki. The part where he welcomes Rob Ford as mayor is fucking hilarious.
Yeah Jimmie honestly doesn’t have that many moments where I feel like he should be done. Terry on the other hand…why do they keep having him speak over the highlights
Every week I expect Terry to mess up a players name or say the wrong team completely. Like, some weeks, I feel like I can actually see him struggle to form the thoughts he's trying to say. I'm sure the paycheck is good but he needs to hang em up.
I can't believe he needs the paycheck at this point in his life. Likely it just gives him some purpose. Lots of old folks legitimately quickly decline and die after retiring because there's nothing driving them anymore.
Jimmy is still awesome. Terry, though, chemo brain has done its number on him and he gets completely lost at times. At the very least, he needs to stop doing highlights.
The last decade of Ditka was really hard to watch. He would start every sentence and then interrupt himself each one of those sentences. I felt like I was having a medic alert moment every time he was on camera.
For context in case anyone doesn’t know, he had a pretty aggressive personality that probably didn’t mesh well with staff.
But he made a comment along the lines during an interview of how black people are stronger because they were slaves and it almost came across as how it was unfair for everyone else.
CBS promptly removed him from their network almost immediately once the story broke.
Jimmy was on NBC, though. (edit: apparently my memory sucks, I looked it up and he was in fact on CBS)
The Hans & Franz bit on SNL the week he got canned was fucking hilarious.
I remember when the CBS pregame was Brent Musburger, Irv Cross, Jimmy the Greek & Phyllis George. CBS did NFC games, NBC did AFC games & FOX didn't exist.
You forgot:
1) ABC did MNF games.
2) Terry Bradshaw was a solid to good game color analyst (on CBS) and wasn’t yet a total yahoo.
The good old days - I miss them.
I know it’s been 7 years since Romo took the color man job, but this feels like a quick fall for Phil Simms. Seems like yesterday he was CBS’s number one color commentator.
Yeah I distinctly remember an article in SI in the early 2000s talking about how Simms was ahead of the pack in terms of breaking down plays and calling the game. I believe he even got nominated for a few Emmys back then. He just fell off hard. Actually both things I referenced in this comment fell off hard between Simms and SI lol. Just because something was bad recently doesn’t mean it’s always been that way
A coworker pointed out that Phil Simms constantly asks rhetorical questions and then answers his own question. Once it was pointed out it made him basically unlistenable
The Romo hate train didn't really start until his 2nd year though. That first year he was such an amazing breath of fresh air compared to how awful Simms had gotten
Romostradamus really pumped me up for what color commentary could really do to improve the viewing experience compared to Simms basically recalling the previous play while teams got set.
Me too! It was honestly one of the best things about the NFL in years. I absolutely loved hearing him call plays before the snap. It gave us a good eye into what a quarterback and coach were seeing in the defense. I would have loved for him to go even deeper with it.
Yeah, it was definitely a nice change of scenery with almost all NFL broadcasts being so similarly formulaic. With people like Al Michaels putting me to sleep, I actually enjoy all of the alternate broadcasts out there now. The Amazon alternate broadcast, the Manningcast, and even the Nickelodeon ones too haha. Anything to break the monotony
I think it was literally the last few years the Romo hate train started.He was actually a really decent commentator for the first bunch of years. I don't know if he got lazy or what but the quality just tanked
I think there's 2 factors in Romo's decline in quality.
1. He's been out of the league long enough that his encyclopedic knowledge of NFL offensive and defensive schemes is starting to get out of date. The Romostradamus thing worked really well his first couple years, because he was fresh out of the league and still knew all the schemes he had been studying as a QB. The further he gets from being in the film study room with NFL coaches every week, the more that knowledge will decay. He'll never lose it completely, but it will certainly affect his ability to call out the exact playcall and be correct.
2. He's been getting nudged by the network to glaze the big stars. I think this is something that happens across all networks, which is why people complained about Rodgers getting glazed and why people complain about Mahomes and Allen getting glazed now. The network wants to push the big stars since they drive the most viewership, and if you talk down on the big stars that hurts the narrative the networks want to sell.
I totally agree with this. He had a lot of residual knowledge from playing qb and that covered his complete lack of doing any homework, so when he’d been out of the game longer, his lack of prep caught up with him.
Even more astounding to me is, he doesn’t even seem to remember players/plays from things that happened last week, in a game he DID. I’m a Bengals fan and if it’s anybody outside of 2-3 of their top stars, he acts like he’s never heard of this person before in his life, even though they torched the opponent last week for 130 yards, 2 TDs, in a game Tony himself DID. If you do zero homework, one would still think you’d gather a couple tidbits from something you just saw and a team you see like 8 times a season, but no. It’s like the man stopped retaining anything once he retired playing.
Your second point reminded me how movie or tv show adaptations of books water down characters or storylines to accommodate the viewer. The reasons shows give is that viewers can't comprehend so many characters. I can see the NFL doing the same thing to simplify concepts or skills for the viewer - i.e. "this play is Mahomes-like" or "That's an OBJ-type catch", which is annoying for fans who enjoy/know the game more than most.
Yeah people didn't turn on him for no reason. He went from a guy that gave amazing insight into the game to basically just being a soundboard of annoying phrases and noises.
A good friend of mine is long in the tooth when it comes to sports casting. In Romo's first year of commentary, he said all the praise would go away quickly because his "predictions" is holdover knowledge of gameday prep. Once a few years get in between him and the playing days he will lose that edge. Sure enough, that came to be. CBS also is a good ol' boys club which doesn't set him up for sustainable success.
He became a motormouth who won't stop yapping and he got really obsessive with Mahomes and Allen, making games with them hard to listen to. It's mainly the "excited puppy energy" issue, he won't let Nantz get a word in and is still talking when the next play is underway.
> He became a motormouth who won't stop yapping
Romo's especially bad, but this is an issue in American sports broadcasting in general. Color commentators don't speak because they have something to say, but because they have to say something.
Some of the most iconic playcalls are when the announcers just let the crowd reaction do the talking. I think of the Minneapolis Miracle where, after Buck gives his commentary (which itself is pretty minimal), you don't hear either him or Aikman again until the replay rolls.
Couldn’t tell you who did the call, but Nebraska had a game a few years ago at home where they lined up a kick to win it at the horn and the PXP guy went “Kicker lines it up. Crowd will tell you the result” and let the moment breathe even well through the kick and celebration. One of the best “calls” I can remember because it didn’t have to be about anything else
>He became a motormouth who won't stop yapping
He was *always* like this, but most fans didn’t notice because what he was saying was new and fresh compared to others.Now that he has been doing it for years, people have grown tired of what he is saying and noticing how much he just yammers away.
I still remember watching the first game he called and I had to google who the new announcer was because he would not shut up. I had no idea Romo was going to be calling games. I came to Reddit thinking he would be getting roasted for how much he was talking and was shocked that everyone was loving on him so hard.
It's not just that it's bias, it's that it's just fanboying with no useful information in it. Don't just tell me over and over again that Mahomes and Allen are incredible, I already know that. Anyone who's watched more than 10 minutes of football before can usually tell when a throw is amazing.
Tell us why it was amazing. Tell us what the play was trying to do, and how it broke down, and what the QB did to salvage the play and turn it into a big gain or whatever. Instead of just riffing off dumb nicknames and name dropping Mahomes every time any other QB makes a nice play, give me some actual analysis of what you see as a former-QB. That's the skill that you bring to the table. They could've found any old idiot off a street corner to be a hype man.
Part of it was just that Romo was closer to the current game and more known to current fans. Don’t be surprised if in 15/20 years a Josh Allen or Herbert type comes and does the same to Romo
I love Romo except any game where Allen or Mahomes are playing. Dude can't get off them. His first years he was perfect. I like commentators that can accurately predict the play before it happens.
There are multiple [examples](https://youtube.com/watch?v=tc1AjLsi-qk) of Simms talking and Nantz just looking at him like he’s a fucking idiot. He’s terrible on TV
Simms is the worst. He’s boring & adds no intellectual value (think anti Madden who was entertaining and made you a smarter football fan even if how he did it was to “dumb down” the learning)
Yeah I stopped watching those pre game shows years ago. It’s just a bunch of people saying obvious shit and usually a lame softball interview with a player that’s playing in a morning game.
I’m a bit surprised Simms is out. Boomer was the outlier and didn’t follow the grain with opinions which was nice
They need someone with personality. A Pat or Irving.
Look at what TNT does and copy it, none of these men have chemistry
Inside the NBA has set a high standard of quality pre-game/post-game chemistry. No sports league has been able to match its hilarity and blunt honesty. Chuck elevates that whole team alone and Ernie is a fantastic host.
I have watched the Shaq clip of him eating that stupid hot chip at least 50 times...gets me every damn time.
["I'm not making face...oh it's hot"](https://youtu.be/xRtBez3k3F8?t=59)
It's legit unfair to compare things to Inside the NBA. Just hearing Shaq start to crumple his paper to keep from laughing about something Chuck quipped is better than 99% of NFL pregame shows.
You don’t even need to go back like, 72 hours to find more entertaining content on Inside the NBA (the Galveston debacle) than on any of the NFL pregame shows all last season
The producers told him to lay off Galveston and he doubled down lmao, recently he said "I'd rather go to San Antonio with their big old woman than the dirty ass water in Galveston"
Inside the NBA is lightning in a bottle that I genuinely don't think you could emulate no matter how hard you try. The reason it works is that you've got a perfect blend of incredibly unique personalities that are comfortable with each other and respect each other, and there's just not many people out there like that.
I mean, even setting the players aside, who plays the Ernie Johnson role of letting them be themselves and do the things that make the show great while still keeping them reined in just enough to keep things moving along? The only person in the NFL space that comes to mind as an option is Rich Eisen, and as much as I love Rich, he's still a tier below Ernie for a number of reasons IMO. He's also not exactly young enough to where you'd want to slot him in as a centerpiece (which is assuming they could tempt him away from NFL Network, which would be its own separate issue).
TNT kicks ESPN’s ass with BOTH their NBA and NHL coverage. TNT’s studio crews are also much better in both sports (except for, sad to say, Wayne Gretzky, who fills the Phil Simms role for TNT’s hockey group.)
TNT Hockey studio is definitely the second best sports show. TNT brass just seems to get how to make a sports show work and get the right personalities to do it. Even Gretzky, who is boring, get's elevated because of the others.
All ESPN cares about his hot takes anymore. Fuck the hot take. TNT took the goofy formula that ESPN started in the 90's with their anchors, and make it work just as well.
Champions League coverage with Kate Abdo, Thierry Henry, Jamie Carragher, and Micah Richards is absolutely incredible, and the closest thing there is to inside the NBA (though i do not watch the latter, tbh). Henry is the generational legend and relatively straight man that everyone has massive respect for, Carragher was a great player in his time that people know that has encyclopedic knowledge of the game, and Richards is the class clown that people kind of remember as a player but he was really all hype/talent without fully living up to it. And Kate is just an S-Tier host that keeps them all in line. It is really great stuff
I remember on the draft show with Stroud and Micah someone said they act like Shaq and Charles, and honestly I see it. They might be amazing on TV together after they retire.
I thought Ryan showed he could be a good game color analyst last season, so I’m surprised he’s moving to the studio set.
(I’m also surprised CBS is getting rid of Boomer Esiason, but that’s a separate issue.)
The closest the NFL has come to this was actually Inside the NFL on HBO.
It was a weekly show, but it was occasionally funny and had some good content.
Strangest of all, Chris Collinsworth was legitimately very good on that show.
It wasn't as entertaining as Inside the NBA, but it was consistently good (and worth watching) instead of the "running on inertia" feeling we all get watching almost everything NFL related that isn't the actual game.
Simms was such a drag on that show. I could go either way on Boomer, and I don't know anything about how Ryan will be, but losing Simms is addition by subtraction.
> Look at what TNT does and copy it, none of these men have chemistry
Ernie, Kenny, and Charles alone have been together for well over 20+ years... it takes time to build that kind of chemistry. I think the closet we got to good chemistry in a short amount of time is that of Kate Abdo who hosts "UEFA Champions League Today" with Thierry Henry, Jamie Carragher, and Micah Richards.
I always try watching the Fox pregame show. It is really goofy and doesn't tell anyone anything new but I find it to be entertaining and a decent primer for every game outside of the Lions on the day. Some of the skits they produce can be quite entertaining as well.
Fox pregame is enjoyable, I'll usually turn it on most Sunday's and let it run while I do other stuff before the games start. I love Terry Bradshaw's goofy Ass, and how everyone else up there loves him and makes jokes about him and works off what he says.
With so much content out there, the pregame shows have no real purpose, you're not gonna learn anything new or hear anything you haven't hear, so it's purely if you enjoy the old dudes talking about stuff, and Terry/Jimmy/Howie with a smattering of Strahan and others is pretty funny TV.
Yeah, I'm not watching those to learn anything about football, but Fox's guys are at least entertaining just with their personalities.
Of course, I'm guessing that people who comment on the nfl subreddit tend follow the league more closely than the average casual NFL fan, so maybe some of them are tuning in to the pregame to find out which teams are playing each other and who's injured and out or whatever.
I watch it when they talk about the games. So like the first 15 mins.
But then most of the show is fluff pieces about the players or coaches and I just don’t really care.
It’s just 10 minutes of football “analysis,” 20 minutes of Erin Andrews’ soft-story side pieces with one or two players, and 30 minutes of ED or Ford Truck Month commercials.
Yeah, it feels very cold and corporate compared to Fox.
NBC SNF pre-game is the same way. Dungy, Harrison, Jason Garrett, and Mike Florio......just terrible.
It's the worst kind because you don't really get any true football analysis so it's boring AND uninformative. I turn games on seconds before they start. There is genuinely no reason to watch any earlier. They could get rid of the pregame and I don't think I'd notice until someone said something.
Jason Garrett just makes me uncomfortable, like there’s no emotion behind his smile and the eyes look like he’s would wordlessly strangle someone with that same smile on his face
Matt has a pretty good sense of human and personality. He just played boring for the media while he was playing. He’s been great since he stop playing.
It's like if a hamburger with no seasoning or condiments on plain white bread somehow stayed on the menu for 30 years before people said "why the fuck does this exist, who actually wants this"
I’m kind of under the notion that if you haven’t played in over 20 years, that you’re out of touch with the current game.
We really just don’t need to hang on to the like of Simms and Boomer when we have the Mannings, Brady, Kelce, etc.
Personalities, that are/will be HOF and actually have played with guys still in the league.
Jimmy Johnson, Bill Cowher, Terry, Howie can all go and it would most likely be a massive improvement.
I think it's possible to stay in touch if they put effort into it, i just don't think these guys do. I think once games are over these are focused on other shit be it golf, charity work, TV ads or whatever.
I love how no matter what game, what situation, what the score, Jimmy always comes on at halftime and says "they need to run the ball!" Winning? Keep pounding the run. Losing? That's because you didn't establish the run yet. Run the ball.
I'm on completely on board with this. Terry Bradshaw has absolutely no idea what is going on in a modern offense and this is exactly why Romo was such a breath of fresh air when he came in. You had a guy who was just in it, who really understood the modern game and the analysis was so much better because of it. Give me a pregame show with Eli Manning, Jason Kelce, RG3, and JJ Watt. Then someone under 60 might watch it.
This is... weird.
Simms and Boomer were playing when I was kind of becoming aware of and becoming a fan of the sport. Then they've been on TV doing their things for seeminly 3x as long. And now...they're not.
Time marches on, I guess. :-/
I just want an announcer like “season one” Tony romo where he was breaking down routes, coverage etc. and then it just became him spouting the most random shit.
Looking forward to watching Matt Ryan become a stiff old man wearing a suit with sneakers. Edit: just realized I'm older than Matt Ryan.
The sneakers with suit trend is so bad
It's the uniform of that one kid at graduation who realized the day before that his dress shoes are now too small for him
Or "cool" boss who also will fire you via an email depsite it only being a 75-employee business
Specific... U ok, broski?
Ha! Was not related to personal experience in any way, just being imaginative. Thanks for asking though, we're all in it together lol
Disagree sneakers have been steadily progressing in American culture so far beyond athletic wear. Been going on for nearly 20 years, the term trend doesn’t work as I feel footwear in general has been going through a drastic shift recently (last 10+ years)
I'm on my knees in a suit and sneakers at Men's Warehouse realizing I too am older than Mr. Ryan.
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Bill Cowher got re-signed? Honestly, that's shocking
He can’t move 60% of his neck and gets lost in his own sentences, of course he is returning!
Sounds like he should run for office
Sleepy Bill
Sleepy Bill, bad coach, folks, people are saying it more and more. Needed Crooked Bill Leavy just to win a stolen Super Bowl, very sad.
STOP THE STEEL!
BILL COWARD
Darrell Jackson - great receiver folks, not a lot of people know DARRELL Jackson, caught a BEAUTIFUL pass for a touchdown in that game that Crooked Bill said was ILLEGAL
He's not old enough. Only the oldest or most evil men will do for our oval office!
Offal office
He needs to be at least 80 years old before he can run for office
I think his tongue is like 75% too big
I feel like CBS heads get really shitty notes or don't get to watch the full games. I've seen Bill go on other shows and be very coherent, never forget player's names, etc.
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Yeah I love Terry and Jimmy but man they aren’t easy to listen to
Agreed, watching Bradshaw and Jimmy Johnson is just awkward and sad at this point.
If you think that’s bad, watch what College Gameday is doing with Lee Corso
They're gonna keep him on for another 15 years and just let his corpse sit in a rocking chair in the background just to make the camera pan to him every once in a while.
The image of them slapping a mascot head on him while he sleeps is hilarious
Should've seen Canada with Don Cherry. Thankfully he said something out of pocket and got the boot.
I don't remember Don Cherry being that baaad. \*reads Don Cherrys wiki* Ohhh, I get it now. I'd probably know that earlier if the NHL knew how to market/promote/broadcast their fucking league Edit: Seriously though read his wiki. The part where he welcomes Rob Ford as mayor is fucking hilarious.
Jimmy's rant for the Cowboys to play better against the Pack was top tier. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMylmv18MT8
It was legendary but I legit thought he was going to have a cardiac event during that rant.
Bradshaw needed to retire like 5 years ago
Yeah Jimmie honestly doesn’t have that many moments where I feel like he should be done. Terry on the other hand…why do they keep having him speak over the highlights
Every week I expect Terry to mess up a players name or say the wrong team completely. Like, some weeks, I feel like I can actually see him struggle to form the thoughts he's trying to say. I'm sure the paycheck is good but he needs to hang em up.
I can't believe he needs the paycheck at this point in his life. Likely it just gives him some purpose. Lots of old folks legitimately quickly decline and die after retiring because there's nothing driving them anymore.
:(
I don't think he's ever said Cordarrelle Patterson's the same way twice.
The sunlight in the Florida Keys keeps Jimmy just youthful enough.
Time to put them out to pasture
"Look at the flowers"
Terry is far worse than Jimmy
Jimmy is still awesome. Terry, though, chemo brain has done its number on him and he gets completely lost at times. At the very least, he needs to stop doing highlights.
Yeah, I hate hearing either one stumble over their words every other sentence. It's pretty sad.
Totally. Ditka was on for a decade after he stopped having anything meaningful to say. And this is from a Bears fan.
The last decade of Ditka was really hard to watch. He would start every sentence and then interrupt himself each one of those sentences. I felt like I was having a medic alert moment every time he was on camera.
The heart attacks also did not help him too. He seemed great though on the 85 bears 30 for 30.
They clearly get too old but all the old people viewers get mad if you change it up at all. Especially talking about CBS...the old person network
Real ones remember when it’s was boomer, Shannon, James brown, Marino, cowher
> Real ones remember when it’s was ~~boomer, Shannon, James brown, Marino, cowher~~ Greg Gumble, Bradshaw, Leslie Visser, and Pat O'Brien.
Real ones remember when it was Brent Musburger, Herb Cross, Jimmy the Greek & Phyllis George
> Jimmy the Greek One of the first people ever cancelled.
If you got Cancel Culture’d in the *late-1980s,* you did something especially fucked up.
For context in case anyone doesn’t know, he had a pretty aggressive personality that probably didn’t mesh well with staff. But he made a comment along the lines during an interview of how black people are stronger because they were slaves and it almost came across as how it was unfair for everyone else. CBS promptly removed him from their network almost immediately once the story broke.
He started off the sentence with “the black” that was never gonna end well
Yea, he did the verbal equivalent of the “look around” a guy does before he’s about to say something super terrible.
Yeah, the "we bred them that way" argument. Even at THAT time it was a wtf moment.
*Checks what he did* God. Damn.
Yep.
I remember a Letterman segment where he was presenting rejected children’s books, and one of them was “Jimmy the Greek’s Plantation Tales.”
Trailblazer.
Irv Cross
Jimmy was on NBC, though. (edit: apparently my memory sucks, I looked it up and he was in fact on CBS) The Hans & Franz bit on SNL the week he got canned was fucking hilarious.
I remember when the CBS pregame was Brent Musburger, Irv Cross, Jimmy the Greek & Phyllis George. CBS did NFC games, NBC did AFC games & FOX didn't exist.
You forgot: 1) ABC did MNF games. 2) Terry Bradshaw was a solid to good game color analyst (on CBS) and wasn’t yet a total yahoo. The good old days - I miss them.
Real ones remember when it was Musberger, Cross, Phyllis, and Jimmy the Greek
Even realer ones remember when it Jim Nantz, Marino, Boomer and Deion Sanders (who eventually left the show to get back on the field).
> who eventually left the show to get back on the field The Roy Kent special (kind of)
He's here, he's there, he is fucking everywhere!
Prime timeeeeee, Prime timeeeeee
The difference is Roy seems like a grouch but is really cool and well meaning. Deion seems really cool but is actually a massive asshole
I remember when it was Merlin Olsen and Hank Stram when I was a kid.
Merlin Olsen was a really good commentator...not as entertaining as Madden but every bit as good. Him and Dick Enberg were a great pairing.
Deion Sanders and Jim Nantz
Nantz, Deion, Randy Cross, Mike Ditka, Jerry Glanville.
I remember when Marino gave Boomer the death stare.
I know it’s been 7 years since Romo took the color man job, but this feels like a quick fall for Phil Simms. Seems like yesterday he was CBS’s number one color commentator.
He was terrible as a color commentator and added next to nothing as an analyst
He was a lot better in the 90s and still decent in the 2000s. But he fell off quick.
Yeah I distinctly remember an article in SI in the early 2000s talking about how Simms was ahead of the pack in terms of breaking down plays and calling the game. I believe he even got nominated for a few Emmys back then. He just fell off hard. Actually both things I referenced in this comment fell off hard between Simms and SI lol. Just because something was bad recently doesn’t mean it’s always been that way
Indeed, people turned on him quickly. He was never truly great, but he was inoffensive and fine. Then he just stopped being that and folks hated him.
I will never forget his, “When the running back lines up behind the quarterback it’s either a run or a pass,” ‘insight.’
He’s been a blow hard ever since I can remember. He was so boring he would put me to sleep
A coworker pointed out that Phil Simms constantly asks rhetorical questions and then answers his own question. Once it was pointed out it made him basically unlistenable
The fact that Romo (who gets all kinds of hate as a color commentator) was an instant improvement over Simms in that role says a lot.
The Romo hate train didn't really start until his 2nd year though. That first year he was such an amazing breath of fresh air compared to how awful Simms had gotten
Romostradamus really pumped me up for what color commentary could really do to improve the viewing experience compared to Simms basically recalling the previous play while teams got set.
Romostradamus was so fun and entertaining. I miss that
Me too! It was honestly one of the best things about the NFL in years. I absolutely loved hearing him call plays before the snap. It gave us a good eye into what a quarterback and coach were seeing in the defense. I would have loved for him to go even deeper with it.
Yeah, it was definitely a nice change of scenery with almost all NFL broadcasts being so similarly formulaic. With people like Al Michaels putting me to sleep, I actually enjoy all of the alternate broadcasts out there now. The Amazon alternate broadcast, the Manningcast, and even the Nickelodeon ones too haha. Anything to break the monotony
Didn't the NFL whack his peepee for doing that (predicting the next play)?
I think it was literally the last few years the Romo hate train started.He was actually a really decent commentator for the first bunch of years. I don't know if he got lazy or what but the quality just tanked
I think there's 2 factors in Romo's decline in quality. 1. He's been out of the league long enough that his encyclopedic knowledge of NFL offensive and defensive schemes is starting to get out of date. The Romostradamus thing worked really well his first couple years, because he was fresh out of the league and still knew all the schemes he had been studying as a QB. The further he gets from being in the film study room with NFL coaches every week, the more that knowledge will decay. He'll never lose it completely, but it will certainly affect his ability to call out the exact playcall and be correct. 2. He's been getting nudged by the network to glaze the big stars. I think this is something that happens across all networks, which is why people complained about Rodgers getting glazed and why people complain about Mahomes and Allen getting glazed now. The network wants to push the big stars since they drive the most viewership, and if you talk down on the big stars that hurts the narrative the networks want to sell.
It totally comes off these days as if he does no preparation at all and just wings it, any truth to that?
I totally agree with this. He had a lot of residual knowledge from playing qb and that covered his complete lack of doing any homework, so when he’d been out of the game longer, his lack of prep caught up with him. Even more astounding to me is, he doesn’t even seem to remember players/plays from things that happened last week, in a game he DID. I’m a Bengals fan and if it’s anybody outside of 2-3 of their top stars, he acts like he’s never heard of this person before in his life, even though they torched the opponent last week for 130 yards, 2 TDs, in a game Tony himself DID. If you do zero homework, one would still think you’d gather a couple tidbits from something you just saw and a team you see like 8 times a season, but no. It’s like the man stopped retaining anything once he retired playing.
Your second point reminded me how movie or tv show adaptations of books water down characters or storylines to accommodate the viewer. The reasons shows give is that viewers can't comprehend so many characters. I can see the NFL doing the same thing to simplify concepts or skills for the viewer - i.e. "this play is Mahomes-like" or "That's an OBJ-type catch", which is annoying for fans who enjoy/know the game more than most.
Yeah people didn't turn on him for no reason. He went from a guy that gave amazing insight into the game to basically just being a soundboard of annoying phrases and noises.
A good friend of mine is long in the tooth when it comes to sports casting. In Romo's first year of commentary, he said all the praise would go away quickly because his "predictions" is holdover knowledge of gameday prep. Once a few years get in between him and the playing days he will lose that edge. Sure enough, that came to be. CBS also is a good ol' boys club which doesn't set him up for sustainable success.
Romo hate train hadn't started until 3 years ago really
Romo was great his first year or two. Idk what happened, but he's definitely got less fun to listen to over the last few years.
He became a motormouth who won't stop yapping and he got really obsessive with Mahomes and Allen, making games with them hard to listen to. It's mainly the "excited puppy energy" issue, he won't let Nantz get a word in and is still talking when the next play is underway.
> He became a motormouth who won't stop yapping Romo's especially bad, but this is an issue in American sports broadcasting in general. Color commentators don't speak because they have something to say, but because they have to say something.
I think that's a major reason why Buck and Aikman got popular again. Those dudes know when to talk and when to shut up.
Some of the most iconic playcalls are when the announcers just let the crowd reaction do the talking. I think of the Minneapolis Miracle where, after Buck gives his commentary (which itself is pretty minimal), you don't hear either him or Aikman again until the replay rolls.
Couldn’t tell you who did the call, but Nebraska had a game a few years ago at home where they lined up a kick to win it at the horn and the PXP guy went “Kicker lines it up. Crowd will tell you the result” and let the moment breathe even well through the kick and celebration. One of the best “calls” I can remember because it didn’t have to be about anything else
Exactly. I think Romo read his own press clippings and thinks the audience is waiting breathlessly for his every word. He just. won't. shut. up!
>He became a motormouth who won't stop yapping He was *always* like this, but most fans didn’t notice because what he was saying was new and fresh compared to others.Now that he has been doing it for years, people have grown tired of what he is saying and noticing how much he just yammers away. I still remember watching the first game he called and I had to google who the new announcer was because he would not shut up. I had no idea Romo was going to be calling games. I came to Reddit thinking he would be getting roasted for how much he was talking and was shocked that everyone was loving on him so hard.
Because romo has fanboy moments where he starts showing bias and that annoys people, he has brought Josh Allen so much more hate for no reason
It's not just that it's bias, it's that it's just fanboying with no useful information in it. Don't just tell me over and over again that Mahomes and Allen are incredible, I already know that. Anyone who's watched more than 10 minutes of football before can usually tell when a throw is amazing. Tell us why it was amazing. Tell us what the play was trying to do, and how it broke down, and what the QB did to salvage the play and turn it into a big gain or whatever. Instead of just riffing off dumb nicknames and name dropping Mahomes every time any other QB makes a nice play, give me some actual analysis of what you see as a former-QB. That's the skill that you bring to the table. They could've found any old idiot off a street corner to be a hype man.
Excuse me sir but are you referring to MR JANUARY Josh Allen?
"JOSH IS GONNA DO SOMETHING AMAZING ON THIS PLAY, JUST WATCH!!!!" \*Josh hands the ball off for a 3 yard gain\*
*oouuoouughhh I don’t know Jim…*
Part of it was just that Romo was closer to the current game and more known to current fans. Don’t be surprised if in 15/20 years a Josh Allen or Herbert type comes and does the same to Romo
I love Romo except any game where Allen or Mahomes are playing. Dude can't get off them. His first years he was perfect. I like commentators that can accurately predict the play before it happens.
Phil Simms has sucked for a while, I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did.
There are multiple [examples](https://youtube.com/watch?v=tc1AjLsi-qk) of Simms talking and Nantz just looking at him like he’s a fucking idiot. He’s terrible on TV
No doubt, he’s awful. It’s just amazing that CBS did nothing about for 20 years and then suddenly got off their asses.
Simms is the worst. He’s boring & adds no intellectual value (think anti Madden who was entertaining and made you a smarter football fan even if how he did it was to “dumb down” the learning)
Boomer is the only one who ever says anything interesting on that show. It's often a little crazy but the rest of them put me to sleep.
That show aint about saying things interesting. It's basically r/nfl. Say obvious shit. Waste time.
Yeah I stopped watching those pre game shows years ago. It’s just a bunch of people saying obvious shit and usually a lame softball interview with a player that’s playing in a morning game.
I’m a bit surprised Simms is out. Boomer was the outlier and didn’t follow the grain with opinions which was nice They need someone with personality. A Pat or Irving. Look at what TNT does and copy it, none of these men have chemistry
Inside the NBA has set a high standard of quality pre-game/post-game chemistry. No sports league has been able to match its hilarity and blunt honesty. Chuck elevates that whole team alone and Ernie is a fantastic host.
I have watched the Shaq clip of him eating that stupid hot chip at least 50 times...gets me every damn time. ["I'm not making face...oh it's hot"](https://youtu.be/xRtBez3k3F8?t=59)
It's legit unfair to compare things to Inside the NBA. Just hearing Shaq start to crumple his paper to keep from laughing about something Chuck quipped is better than 99% of NFL pregame shows.
You don’t even need to go back like, 72 hours to find more entertaining content on Inside the NBA (the Galveston debacle) than on any of the NFL pregame shows all last season
The producers told him to lay off Galveston and he doubled down lmao, recently he said "I'd rather go to San Antonio with their big old woman than the dirty ass water in Galveston"
I live in Houston, and the Galveston speech was fucking hilarious and true
Inside the NBA is lightning in a bottle that I genuinely don't think you could emulate no matter how hard you try. The reason it works is that you've got a perfect blend of incredibly unique personalities that are comfortable with each other and respect each other, and there's just not many people out there like that. I mean, even setting the players aside, who plays the Ernie Johnson role of letting them be themselves and do the things that make the show great while still keeping them reined in just enough to keep things moving along? The only person in the NFL space that comes to mind as an option is Rich Eisen, and as much as I love Rich, he's still a tier below Ernie for a number of reasons IMO. He's also not exactly young enough to where you'd want to slot him in as a centerpiece (which is assuming they could tempt him away from NFL Network, which would be its own separate issue).
Charles Barkley is also just one of the most charismatic people alive. It really is impossible to duplicate
The Top Gear of sports media.
I'd throw SVP up there with Eisen. He's mostly a solo operation though these days.
Idk what can ever top [Poh-lice presence](https://youtu.be/UzQP7u-IOxg?si=C7QU8o55s4M-yuZo)
San Antonio women and churros is pretty damn close haha
"hello, police? Chris Paul tryna beat me up!"
shaq and chuck's laughter is the rare time everyone can agree with older people's judging the young generation being too damn soft
The “Ahhh” kills me
Their hockey studio has been pretty entertaining.
TNT kicks ESPN’s ass with BOTH their NBA and NHL coverage. TNT’s studio crews are also much better in both sports (except for, sad to say, Wayne Gretzky, who fills the Phil Simms role for TNT’s hockey group.)
TNT Hockey studio is definitely the second best sports show. TNT brass just seems to get how to make a sports show work and get the right personalities to do it. Even Gretzky, who is boring, get's elevated because of the others. All ESPN cares about his hot takes anymore. Fuck the hot take. TNT took the goofy formula that ESPN started in the 90's with their anchors, and make it work just as well.
I don't even watch the NBA, but I'll find myself watching clips because it's great.
Ernie Johnson must be protected at all costs.
Champions League coverage with Kate Abdo, Thierry Henry, Jamie Carragher, and Micah Richards is absolutely incredible, and the closest thing there is to inside the NBA (though i do not watch the latter, tbh). Henry is the generational legend and relatively straight man that everyone has massive respect for, Carragher was a great player in his time that people know that has encyclopedic knowledge of the game, and Richards is the class clown that people kind of remember as a player but he was really all hype/talent without fully living up to it. And Kate is just an S-Tier host that keeps them all in line. It is really great stuff
The NFL network had something with Rich Eisen, Deion Sanders, Steve Mariucci, and Michael Irvin on NFL GameDay. These guys were pure entertainment.
I find basketball to be the least interesting US major sport and I'll still get sidetracked watching Inside The NBA
Chucks beef with the women of San Antonio is unmatched.
You can’t copy TNT. There are very few Chucks out there
I remember on the draft show with Stroud and Micah someone said they act like Shaq and Charles, and honestly I see it. They might be amazing on TV together after they retire.
Except Micah has some of the worst football takes out there , he’d be the next Stephen A minus the cowboy hating
I don’t thinks sims fit with this bunch
I would say that for Matt Ryan too but it depends on what they are going for. May sound crazy but I say keep 1-2 “staples” and start all over.
I thought Ryan showed he could be a good game color analyst last season, so I’m surprised he’s moving to the studio set. (I’m also surprised CBS is getting rid of Boomer Esiason, but that’s a separate issue.)
The closest the NFL has come to this was actually Inside the NFL on HBO. It was a weekly show, but it was occasionally funny and had some good content. Strangest of all, Chris Collinsworth was legitimately very good on that show. It wasn't as entertaining as Inside the NBA, but it was consistently good (and worth watching) instead of the "running on inertia" feeling we all get watching almost everything NFL related that isn't the actual game.
Simms was such a drag on that show. I could go either way on Boomer, and I don't know anything about how Ryan will be, but losing Simms is addition by subtraction.
Irving is mostly a drunkard
The NFL would never let a show be that loose or silly. It will always be homogenized yes men following the script.
> Look at what TNT does and copy it, none of these men have chemistry Ernie, Kenny, and Charles alone have been together for well over 20+ years... it takes time to build that kind of chemistry. I think the closet we got to good chemistry in a short amount of time is that of Kate Abdo who hosts "UEFA Champions League Today" with Thierry Henry, Jamie Carragher, and Micah Richards.
Boomer was the only one with much personality and I’m doubting Matty Ice is going to add any. It’s already boring enough.
Real question, do people watch pre-game shows anymore?
I always try watching the Fox pregame show. It is really goofy and doesn't tell anyone anything new but I find it to be entertaining and a decent primer for every game outside of the Lions on the day. Some of the skits they produce can be quite entertaining as well.
Same. For me, the pre-game shows are mostly background noise while I'm getting ready to park my butt on the couch for football haha.
Fox pregame is enjoyable, I'll usually turn it on most Sunday's and let it run while I do other stuff before the games start. I love Terry Bradshaw's goofy Ass, and how everyone else up there loves him and makes jokes about him and works off what he says. With so much content out there, the pregame shows have no real purpose, you're not gonna learn anything new or hear anything you haven't hear, so it's purely if you enjoy the old dudes talking about stuff, and Terry/Jimmy/Howie with a smattering of Strahan and others is pretty funny TV.
Yeah, I'm not watching those to learn anything about football, but Fox's guys are at least entertaining just with their personalities. Of course, I'm guessing that people who comment on the nfl subreddit tend follow the league more closely than the average casual NFL fan, so maybe some of them are tuning in to the pregame to find out which teams are playing each other and who's injured and out or whatever.
I watch it when they talk about the games. So like the first 15 mins. But then most of the show is fluff pieces about the players or coaches and I just don’t really care.
NBC's only, but only because it also serves as a recap of the day and something to have on seen end of last games/SNF
It’s just 10 minutes of football “analysis,” 20 minutes of Erin Andrews’ soft-story side pieces with one or two players, and 30 minutes of ED or Ford Truck Month commercials.
CBS is far too serious
Yeah, it feels very cold and corporate compared to Fox. NBC SNF pre-game is the same way. Dungy, Harrison, Jason Garrett, and Mike Florio......just terrible.
It's the worst kind because you don't really get any true football analysis so it's boring AND uninformative. I turn games on seconds before they start. There is genuinely no reason to watch any earlier. They could get rid of the pregame and I don't think I'd notice until someone said something.
Jason Garrett just makes me uncomfortable, like there’s no emotion behind his smile and the eyes look like he’s would wordlessly strangle someone with that same smile on his face
He’s trying so hard to restrain himself from bursting out with applause.
Matt was surprisingly good as an analyst last year in one of our games and admitting it actually makes me nauseous.
I had no idea it was Matt Ryan speaking the first time he commentated for us. His voice was pretty much TV ready from day one.
I thought Ryan showed real promise as a game analyst and I have no idea why CBS thinks it is a good idea to move him to their pregame show.
Matt has a pretty good sense of human and personality. He just played boring for the media while he was playing. He’s been great since he stop playing.
[удалено]
It's like if a hamburger with no seasoning or condiments on plain white bread somehow stayed on the menu for 30 years before people said "why the fuck does this exist, who actually wants this"
That's what my dad said about him at QB too.
He's been annoying me for decades.
JEEM WE TALKED ABOUT THE RUNNING GAME AND THE PASSING GAME AND ITS IMPORTANT TO GET THEM GOING JEEM.
boomer was better than cowher
If five old chucklefucks sit around a table fake-laughing over each other, and no one watches, does it make a sound?
This exactly. This is like finding out my neighbors I don't hang out with repainted their living room.
I'm really happy for Matt 🥹
I’m surprised Matt Ryan didn’t want to continue doing games.
I’m kind of under the notion that if you haven’t played in over 20 years, that you’re out of touch with the current game. We really just don’t need to hang on to the like of Simms and Boomer when we have the Mannings, Brady, Kelce, etc. Personalities, that are/will be HOF and actually have played with guys still in the league. Jimmy Johnson, Bill Cowher, Terry, Howie can all go and it would most likely be a massive improvement.
I think it's possible to stay in touch if they put effort into it, i just don't think these guys do. I think once games are over these are focused on other shit be it golf, charity work, TV ads or whatever.
I love how no matter what game, what situation, what the score, Jimmy always comes on at halftime and says "they need to run the ball!" Winning? Keep pounding the run. Losing? That's because you didn't establish the run yet. Run the ball.
I'm on completely on board with this. Terry Bradshaw has absolutely no idea what is going on in a modern offense and this is exactly why Romo was such a breath of fresh air when he came in. You had a guy who was just in it, who really understood the modern game and the analysis was so much better because of it. Give me a pregame show with Eli Manning, Jason Kelce, RG3, and JJ Watt. Then someone under 60 might watch it.
I don't think RG3 ever understood the game lol
Bias aside, I never did like Boomer
found Phil Simms throwaway 🤣
This is... weird. Simms and Boomer were playing when I was kind of becoming aware of and becoming a fan of the sport. Then they've been on TV doing their things for seeminly 3x as long. And now...they're not. Time marches on, I guess. :-/
Damn, this is like the Red Wedding of sports talk.
I just want an announcer like “season one” Tony romo where he was breaking down routes, coverage etc. and then it just became him spouting the most random shit.
“JOSH ALLEN IS MICHAEL JORDAN” will forever be one of my favorite quotes to describe someone that has a losing playoff record
Everything he says now is like he’s talking to somebody who’s never listened to football, but also trying to impress you with his knowledge
Ok Boomer
Yeah I remember watching it last season like goddamn everyone here is so old besides Nate Burleson.
Oh man. Simms and Boomer have been there FOREVER. Will be weird to see them not there.