LET’S try to get Monday Night Football on ESPN straightened out just one more time, then, I swear, I’m done. Perhaps.
It’s real simple, fellas. The six of you – network president George Bodenheimer, VP of content John Skipper, MNF producer Jay Rothman and announcers Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Tony Kornheiser – each take a tape or DVD of last Sunday’s telecast, or any recent MNF telecast, pop it into the machine, then sit down as most of us do – sit down to watch the game.
Next, look and listen, over the next three-plus hours, and gauge if ESPN helps or hinders that once-standard leisure time activity.
Listen. Hear that? And that? And that, and that, and that? Hear how every play is followed by talk, talk, talk and then more talk? An incomplete pass or a short run can’t, once in a while, speak for itself?
Why must the end of every play signal the start of windy, tortured analysis, lines drawn by Telestrator, the appearance and discussion of silly stats, goofy gags, forced cross-promotions, stories about talking to the defensive coordinator before the game (which one doesn’t think it’s important to stop the run?), the arrival of another Disney character/guest (going to the Jimmy Kimmel once too often), a throw to Michele Tafoya or Suzy Kolber on the sidelines?
Or anything and everything else until viewers can no longer hear or see because their senses have been sizzled to goo then soldered shut?
MNF, on ESPN’s watch, continues to be the most insufferable, big-ticket live game series in national TV history. Nothing else, try as it might, comes close. And Monday’s Giants-Falcons was the latest must-see game delivered in a can’t-stand package.
Come on, fellas, you guys are sports fans; be honest. You couldn’t indulge such a telecast, let alone enjoy one. You can’t tell us that you could sit through a tape of a MNF telecast, then declare, “Nice job,” or, “I particularly like the way they don’t intrude; the way they just let you watch the game.”
You guys are no different from us. In your formative sports-fan years and many years beyond, you never tuned to a game in eager anticipation of having the network drown it, turn it into an endurance test on an obstacle course.
Try this, just for starters: Choose one play in every quarter and follow it with – ready? – nothing. Cameras stay on the field, no promos, no spinning graphics, no talking. One play, every quarter, just four plays out of every game. Just to let the game breathe a bit, to allow our abused senses some rest.
You guys are sports fans, like us. You can understand how nice that would be, can’t you? After all, if the goal is to prove to the audience how hip ESPN is, why not take one of the network’s most valued properties – Monday Night Football – and prove it?
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This weekend, when those significant inside-the-20 “red zone” stats appear and are parroted, consider:
Through six weeks, the NFL’s most proficient red zone offense belongs to the 3-3 Cards. Next come the 3-3 Browns, followed by the 2-3 Raiders and the 3-3 Chargers. In fact, among the top 14 Red Zone offenses, five have winning records. The 1-4 Saints are sixth, the 1-4 Bengals are ninth, the 0-6 Dolphins are 11th and the 1-5 Jets are 13th.
The Dolphins, by virtue of 11 TDs and seven field goals on their 20 Red Zone possessions, are ranked ahead of the 5-0 Colts, the 4-1 Steelers and 5-1 Packers.
But that’s not enough to make TV folks look twice because you can’t look a second time until you’ve looked once. But which network, before it programs and posts stats, takes a good look to begin with? As long as they sound and look good, that’s plenty good enough.
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No one says nothing with more street-slick flair than Stephen A. Smith. Smith’s day-after take on Giants-Falcons Tuesday was nothing more than jive-infused platitudes designed to impress those who wouldn’t know bombast from da bomb.
But Smith tipped off even those listeners when noting that the Giants’ upcoming schedule included the weak Dolphins, “at Miami.”
Smith’s sidekick, Mike Missanelli, placed in a tough spot, had to stop Smith to tell him what most listeners to New York sports radio shows long ago knew: Oct. 28’s Giants “at” Dolphins will be played in London.
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Someday, maybe, all sportscasters will understand that the quickest way to our hearts is to admit errors.
To that end, and based on a pile of e-mails, Fox’s Tim McCarver made points with lots of viewers who’d been down on him when, in Game 1 of Indians-Red Sox, he identified a double as the result of Kenny Lofton‘s run-hard-on-contact hustle. But when a replay showed Lofton to have initially watched the ball instead of running, McCarver corrected himself.
And that’s so rare and so appreciated that it made more admirers of McCarver than if the replay had shown him to be correct. It’s human naycha.
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St. John’s basketball, dropped by ESPN 1050, has been picked up by WFAN and, on FAN conflict days and nights, Bloomberg Radio 1130.
phil.mushnick@nypost.com