Well , team, we did it. It wasn’t easy, but we did it!
We made it through another college and pro football season despite the endless airborne assaults of Mike Mayock.
You know that expression, “No one’s bigger than the game”? Saturday on NBC, Mayock proved it. No matter how hard he tried — and the dude gave it his all — he couldn’t make us leave that Chiefs-Colts game.
Still, in recognition of a relentless adversary, we salute Mayock’s determination: He remains the heavyweight champion of modern football blowhards, Gaseous Clay.
Even in the throes of an epidemic that has left easy-to-understand explanations and terms abandoned and homeless, Mayock, as a steady speaker of genuine gridiron gibberish, stands out like an unwanted croissant in a big bag of bagels.
Good grief, before six minutes of game-clock was gone, Saturday, Mayock had delivered so many puffed “Me’s” “My’s” and “I’s” we checked to see if the game had been replaced by his autobiography.
When Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith bolted the pocket to run for a first down, Mayock explained this self-evident play with: “He’s going to use his athletic ability.”
Really? An NFL QB with athletic ability? Coincidentally, the 11 guys on the other team were going to use their athletic ability to try to stop him.
Mayock wasn’t done on Smith: “People don’t realize that at Utah, under Urban Meyer, this guy was an athlete.”
A star quarterback and an athlete? Come on, Mike, stop messin’ with our heads!
Moments later, backup Chiefs running back Knile Davis entered. Mayock explained that Davis has talent, “but he has a lack of ability to stay on the field.”
What the heck does that mean? He wanders away? Rather than Davis “is often injured,” Mayock went with, “a lack of ability to stay on the field.”
Moments after that, when Smith overthrew receiver Junior Hemingway in the end zone, Mayock said he thought Hemingway would be “able to make a play, there.”
Make what play? Catch the pass? After the ball’s thrown to you, that’s the only “play” left to “make,” no?
Is there no one at NBC or NFLN to save him from himself, them from him, us from him? Do his bosses like what they hear? Do they think we like what we hear?
He even struggles with toss-in facts. Saturday he identified Chiefs defensive coordinator Bob Sutton as “a successful coach at Army.” Sutton was well respected, but his Army teams went 44-55 — before he was fired!
Meanwhile, the state of sports broadcasting and broadcasters, and those who call the shots, now gives the hiring advantage to those who would rather sound Mayock-hip — lousy with gimmicks — than make sense.
Thursday, as Colts running back Trent Richardson fumbled, Dan Hicks, play-by-play man seated beside Mayock, exclaimed, “and he puts it on the ground!”
Good grief!
NFL commissioner continues to be ‘all about the fan$’
The Roger Goodell “It’s All About The Fans” Award goes to … Roger Goodell!
Saturday’s early game — Chiefs-Colts — was played indoors, while the night game — Saints-Eagles — was outdoors. That’s because patrons, as they’re beginning to learn, everywhere, are taken for granted; human sacrifices to TV money.
Last week, detached, knee-jerking radio folks, including ESPN’s Mike Golic and local treasure Mike Francesa, questioned the devotion of Packers fans for not selling out yesterday’s game.
That the worst/cheapest ticket was $102, that the NFL was price-gouging the good seats, that the Packers were loan-sharking for 2014 season ticket payments and that the game would be a late-start in what was expected to be arctic weather was irrelevant?
That longtime patrons, everywhere, are learning to reject bad deals as intolerably illogical is a good sign, one that should be supported — not ridiculed — by media.
And while CBS’s NFL studio panelists yesterday laughed — perhaps out of habit — over Shannon Sharpe’s rant about the game soon to be played in Green Bay, Sharpe was dead on:
“I want people to stop telling me that cold doesn’t matter. I watched the Weather Channel and they say, ‘Look, don’t go outside unless you absolutely have to! Bring your pets inside when it’s this cold!’ But you tell men to go outside and play for three hours, and it’s OK?”
Incidentally, it was to Packers’ season ticket holders, as shown on NFLN, two years ago, to whom Goodell boasted, “It’s all about the fans.” Pure bunk. And he knows it. So do we.
The weekend’s heart-warming moments included ESPN’s high school all-star football game telecast, during which young showoffs and posers were given extra TV time — perhaps prepping for what’s to come from ESPN.
But Chiefs’ WR Dwayne Bowe took the cheesecake. Out of LSU in 2007, Bowe, 29, never tires of demonstrating that he’s just wild about Dwayne Bowe.
Saturday with four minutes left, his team having lost a 28-point lead to trail by one, Bowe caught a pass then went into a grotesque me-pose mode. Here was an opportunity for Mike Mayock to be heard. He said nothing.
Simm-ply amazing 3 hours
How was CBS’s Phil Simms able to spend three hours clearly speaking Chargers-Bengals without: “He put the ball on the ground,” “He got separation in space,” “He leveraged the linebacker” “extended the play,” or “You must maintain lane integrity”?
Kevin Kugler and James Lofton, on Westwood One Radio on Saturday, provided an easier-on-the-central-nervous-system alternative to Mike Mayock.
Bronxville reader David Conrad asks if we’ve noticed how ex-game officials, now working as waiting-for-replay-decisions experts, rarely have a definitive answer, anyway? Yes, we have. But if they say, “Your guess is as good as mine” or “Ya never know” — their position may be eliminated.
CBS’s Tracy Wolfson has risen from the pack to become a top sideline reporter. No self-serving “he told me” intrusions, just concisely spoken, interesting and often applicable info. She’s a pro.
Niners’ LB Aldon Smith, was identified by Fox’s Troy Aikman on Sunday as “one of the elite pass-rushers in football.” No mention that it was astonishing he was playing this season, as he’d been busted for weapons, drugs and DUI charges.
Hear about the optician who backed into the lens grinder and made a spectacle of himself? ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit says the key to winning football is “locating the ball,” then ESPN’s Jesse Palmer claims it’s “eye discipline.”