BUBBLE BABBLE: Calvin Johnson catches a screen pass — but was it a “bubble” screen? — during Lions-Vikings yesterday. (AP)
This isn’t going to be easy, but I have to admit it: I’ve lost touch.
Football has passed me by. I’ve been watching since Y.A. Tittle threw to Del Shofner. I remember the Titans — not the movie, but Curley Johnson and Dick Christy.
I started early, when I was 7, but I now realize I no longer understand what I’m watching.
And I figured I’d tell you before you — having spared my feelings this long — told me, before you made me hand over the car keys, so to speak.
It hit me over the weekend (and over the head) when I continued to hear about “bubble screens.” TV and radio folks continued to speak as if the “bubble screen” pass has been around for years, as if everyone, by now, knows a bubble screen when they see/hear one.
Frankly, though, I’d never heard of a bubble screen before this season. And, given that every play identified as “a bubble screen” looks no different from what I know — or knew — as a “screen pass,” I figure I’m the one who can’t remember where I parked.
Although I haven’t yet heard an analyst say, “They went with the screen, there, when maybe they should’ve gone with a bubble screen,” here’s my sword; I surrender.
Bubble screens, I’ve only this season learned, come in various sizes and styles. There’s the basic bubble screen — left or right — and there is what NFLN/NBC analyst Mike Mayock identified as “a fake bubble screen.”
On Saturday night, during ESPN Radio’s West Virginia-Oklahoma State broadcast, analyst David Norrie reported one team just ran “a little bubble screen.” He said it so matter-of-factly — as if I was supposed to know what he was talking about — that I began to sob. I knew it was over.
Truth is, football confused me, all day.
On ESPN’s “College Gameday,” a full-screen graphic showed the top four ranked teams’ points-per-game differentials. Alabama was plus 29.3, Kansas State plus 25.7, Oregon plus 31.4, Notre Dame a mere plus 15. Discussion followed.
I once thought such things often didn’t matter, given schedules and coaching sensibilities. I thought it mattered whether teams scheduled home patsies and ran it up against weak opponents.
But this info was in the hands of national TV experts: Lee Corso, Chris Fowler, Desmond Howard, Kirk Herbstreit. They didn’t think it mattered.
None mentioned that Alabama beat Western Kentucky, 35-0, Florida Atlantic, 40-7, and an unusually poor Arkansas, 52-0. None felt it worth noting that K-State beat Missouri State, 51-9, or that Oregon beat way-down Colorado, 70-14, and Tennessee Tech, 63-14.
And if that didn’t matter to them, why should it matter to me?
Shucks, immediately after the kickoff to Army-Rutgers, ESPNU threw it to sideline reporter George Smith. Right at the start? This had to be important!
But Smith’s microphone wasn’t working. Two plays later, it was. So what was the big news? Smith recited stats about Army quarterback Trent Steelman.
Power in the neighborhood went out a few minutes later, so I turned to my rusty, trusty, hurricane-certified transistor, to the Rutgers radiocast on WOR. But I was still left in the dark.
What I heard was three, four different voices coming at me from here, there, everywhere. They talked to one another, over one another; they agreed, disagreed, laughed, hollered, grunted. It was like tuning in to a mah-jongg game.
During Penn State-Nebraska on ABC/ESPN, Chris Spielman applauded a 6-yard run as “positive yardage.” On ESPN2’s West Virginia-Oklahoma State, Kelly Stouffer said West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen was an assistant at OSU, thus, “he wants his team to perform very well, coming back here to Stillwater.”
And all day, plays and players were described as “stellar.” I only hear “stellar” when spoken on TV and radio, never in casual, off-air conversation. Kinda like how, “They’re down 10” is spoken as “having to overcome a 10-point deficit.”
But that last “bubble screen” — even described as “a little bubble screen” — is what did it. To me, it was a big bubble screen, the clincher. I’ll pull over; you drive.
Lockout an ‘idol’ time for Emrick
If You were to ask Doc Emrick, 66, how he became interested in hockey broadcasting, he wouldn’t take two breaths before saying: “Bob Chase.” Chase, 86, is still, after 60 years, the play-by-play voice of the ECHL (formerly IHL) Fort Wayne Komets, heard on strong-signaled WOWO 1190-AM.
Unknown to Chase, he was Emrick’s wonder-years mentor. Emrick grew up glued to his calls of Komets games from Muskegon, Port Huron, Flint, Kalamazoo, Toledo, Saginaw and home games in Fort Wayne, an hour’s drive from Emrick’s bedroom. Emrick imitated and idolized Chase then, reveres him now.
On Friday, Emrick was in Fort Wayne to share Chase’s call of the Komets’ win over the Evansville Icemen.
Emrick: “It was like the closing scene of ‘Field of Dreams,’ except the man hasn’t passed and heaven was Indiana.”
* Jimmy Dolan wants everyone to know that refunds for all the lost Rangers, Devils and Islanders telecasts — “expensive programming” that causes increases in cable/satellite bills — are on the way and should be arriving sometime after the sun explodes.
* Good stuff from Fox’s Thom Brennaman, at the top of Giants-Bengals, debunking that A.J. Green trash-talked the Giants junk. Anyone who heard the Bengals WR’s WFAN interview knew Green did no such thing.
But Brennaman and Brian Billick spent the first two-plus quarters on how bad the Giants were on third down. Fellas: That was because they had many third-and-longs caused by bupkis — no relation to Butkus — on first and second!
In the first quarter, after the Giants’ Will Hill recovered a fumble, Billick said Hill was “just brought up from the practice squad.” Not quite. He returned after a four-game drug suspension. And why wasn’t Bengals RB Benjarvus Green-Ellis flagged for too many names on the field?
CBS’ Rich Gannon, a 17-year NFL QB, needed passer ratings during Jets-Seahawks to know Mark Sanchez hasn’t been good? Really? Otherwise, he wouldn’t have known?
* Now that WFAN is heard on 660-AM and 101.9-FM, Mike Francesa figures odd/even gas rationing doesn’t apply to him, certainly not his Mercedes.
Nice pull by ESPN during Northwestern-Michigan, inserting footage of Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald walloping the telecast’s analyst, Brian Griese, in the 1995 NU-UM game.
On Friday, ESPN credited ESPN-LA for the story that Lakers coach Mike Brown was “safe,” then credited ESPN-LA for the story that Brown had been fired.