Sports

Analysts too often too late with inside info

As Inspector Clouseau asked, “Does your dog bite?”

As long as we keep hearing that “someone has to step up and make a play” — apparently most football teams are short on volunteers — I’m gonna take a shot at it. Here’s the plan:

Instead of being given the “Ford Pinto Keys to the Game” at the top of telecasts — “Establish running game,” “Limit turnovers,” “Avoid third-and-long,” “Brush after every meal” — let’s take some of the most significant things that we will be told later during the telecasts and place ’em right at the top.

Every telecast we catch an earful of what coaches and players “told us” before the game — i.e., during production meetings, in hotel lobbies and after practice. This info most often is passed along to us only after something happens in the game that supports or underscores what the coach or player allegedly “told us” before the game.

( In 1984, ex-Browns’ WR Reggie Rucker, then an NBC analyst, during a Browns-Bengals telecast, claimed to have had dinner the night before with Cincinnati coach Sam Wyche. Rucker even quoted from their conversation. Wyche, the next day, was stunned to hear of Rucker’s claim. He said that he not only didn’t dine with Rucker, he hardly knows him.)

So, unless we’re being fibbed to, why not list/say a few of those “we were told” items at the top of the telecasts? Why should we be the last to know? Why wait until it has happened to tell us that Coach Rabalap or WR Al Alburquerque “told us” so?

No one likes an “I told you so” — especially those who wait until after it happens to tell you for the first time. After all, we’re not talking State secrets here. The announcers wouldn’t be told, anyway, if there was an early onside kick planned or a uranium purchase being conducted in the trainer’s room at halftime.

It’s just that after a 65-yard TD off a sideline stop-and-go, I’m tired of hearing things such as, “They’ve been working on that play all week!”

If that’s truly the case, don’t tell us after it happens, tell us at the top! Sure beats, “Must dominate line of scrimmage.”

I’m also tired of seeing a starting DB being helped off the field then being told, “Well, he’s been nursing a hamstring.” Again, that’s pertinent, at-the-top info. Perhaps the offense was taking advantage of just that!

The offensive coordinator always includes “gadget plays,” “naked bootlegs” and “tackle eligible” passes?

Hey, great info. But tell us near the top, not after a triple-reverse flea-flicker — as if you knew something was coming, but kept it to yourself.

Shucks, if you’re going to invite us in to watch the game with ya, tell us before we enter that your dog tends to run away. That’s pertinent info that you know but we don’t, but certainly should. Don’t tell us after Fido bolts through the open door and takes off up the street.

Unless, of course, it’s “a new wrinkle,” a play Fido’s been working on all week.

Mayock ramblings not gaining any leverage

NFL Network consistently provides strong video on Thursday nights. And that’s a consistent problem for both viewers and analyst Mike Mayock, because Mayock continues to challenge our vision to a fight.

Thursday, second play from scrimmage of Colts-Jaguars, Jacksonville QB Blaine Gabbert hit TE Marcedes Lewis with a 9-yard pass in the right flat. Lewis ran a simple up, cut a few steps to his right, stopped, turned and caught the pass.

It could have/should have spoken for itself, but then Mayock grabbed the play by the throat and began to strangle it.

After praising Gabbert for a good arm and a good throw — and making a long story of that short tale — Mayock stormed the Sea of Tranquility. During a replay: “Now there’s the route, now look at the break. He’s gotta throw outside shoulder, away from the inside, leveraged linebacker.”

Second play from scrimmage! Nurse!

Gabbert threw it to “the outside shoulder” because that’s the direction to which Lewis cut! That was the play! Did Mayock think that Gabbert — or any QB — was trying to throw it to the “leveraged linebacker”?!

A leveraged linebacker? You mean the LB covering Lewis? Al DeRogatis spins in his grave!

Sorry, though, we’re not going to get on Mayock for what eventually proved a strong, but wrong, position on a second-quarter replay challenge on a sideline catch, eventually ruled incomplete. Not only did his take make some sense — that the pass was complete before receiver Cecil Shorts lost the ball out of bounds — no one, including the officials, knows that ever-changing rule well enough to get on anyone’s case.

* Chris Elias, an NYPD specialist assigned to JFK Airport — he appears on NatGeo Channel’s excellent real-stuff show, “To Catch A Smuggler” — during a recent episode eyed a fellow suspected of being a drug mule from Central America. The suspect was wearing a Yankees cap.

Elias: “I’d say that 90 percent of criminals caught in New York are wearing Yankee hats.”

Speaking of the Yankees and law-breakers, the club is installing a sign for Robinson Cano, a few feet up the first base line, that reads, “No Loitering.”

ESPN should sack stat

ESPN’s insistence on replacing reality with stats would be funny if ESPN weren’t serious. Yes, technically, in its Thursday night loss on ESPN, Virginia Tech held Florida State to minus-15 yards rushing. But that total included five sacks totaling 44 yards!

* Several local cable and FIOS TV systems didn’t know where/who lost power in the hurricane? You’ve got to call for a credit? Sounds like they are hoping they don’t get too many calls, that not too many find out about this. Shoot, they sure know exactly where you live if you’re a day late paying their month-in-advance bills.

* Mizdirection, a 4-year-old filly owned by Jim Rome, now with CBS, won last week’s Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint.

* Reader Mark Yusko asks us to imagine legendary ABC college football voice Keith Jackson, and his famous “Fumm-ble!” call, if heard today: “He put the ball on the ground! Whoa, Nellie!”

* Didn’t realize the Brooklyn Nets are a basketball team until I checked the NBA standings. I figured it was a nightclub.

* Friday, in the wee hours of the morning, the PGA event’s leader was Charlie Wi (pronounced, “we”); the LPGA event’s co-leader was Michelle Wie (pronounced, “we”).