2020 NFL Season

[BBTV]

Heads really need to roll with the Ravens. They had a coach that was "not consistently wearing masks" and didn't report his symptoms?  That means that they weren't adequately explaining the serious of the situation, and didn't establish consequences for these actions.  The coach's discipline should start with losing his job, but the organization itself needs to be held accountable for lack of control.

 

Forfeit actually seems like getting off easy.

[The_Admiral]

8 hours ago, Red Wolf said:

Joe Buck's only crime as a commentator is that he's the boringest person ever. He has the voice for the profession, but not the audible love of the game.

 

Kevin Harlan entered national broadcasting through the same door as Joe Buck (Fox wanted young guys for their new NFL package and he had a famous dad), but he hasn't lost his love for the game, or if he has, he's damn good at faking it, not to mention still having a sense of humor about it. I'm callin' both games!

 

Joe Buck's redemption arc was interesting, because what happened was all the early-2010s Deadspin writers got to know him, realized he was a bitter and sardonic graduate of an elite prep school in an insular community, and declared him Actually Good. He was one of them all along.

[BBTV]

What you guys are calling "boring" I actually think of as a positive.  He doesn't talk through everything and lets the game play out without trying to be the star of the show.  Let the game tell the story, with the announcer simply amplifying key parts without trying to become part of it.  Similar to how I remember Pat Summerall.  Sometimes silence and maintaining an even keel is better than screaming and going crazy.

 

I think that kind of temprement is better when balanced with a more charismatic color guy (John Madden was the perfect counterpart to Summerall).  I used to think Troy Aikman was good in that role, but he seems to have lost interest and has been mailing it in for a while now.  Also, Tony Romo has raised the bar so high for color guys that all the others have dropped down a notch or five.

 

I like Harlon too, even though his style is different than Bucks.  There's no single way to do it, but the difference between the top guys and the jabronis that call Southern Ballsack State College vs Northwest South Eastern A&M is enormous.  

[sc49erfan15]

I really, really don't get the hate for Joe Buck.

 

I don't think he's great or anything, but listening to him call a game doesn't make my ears bleed. He's fine. People just like to complain.

[The_Admiral]

1) he's Jack Buck's less talented son who would not be the lead voice of not one but two of the four big sports were he not Jack Buck's son

 

2) The time he said he didn't like the sports he called and would rather be watching The Bachelor annoyed a lot of people. I believe that was when Joe Buck was trying to pivot to being a general-entertainment personality, around when HBO gave him his own talk show. But the talk show failed and Joe Buck's attempt to shed the bonds of sportscasting failed too, getting lapped by, of all people, Michael Strahan. I think he's been a bit humbled since then, and everyone kind of moved on (though again, like I said, the internet getting a fresh set of marching orders from Deadspin helped his cause a lot too). 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I don't mind Joe Buck. I wish there were more voices in NFL broadcasting, but it's low on my list of priorities.

 

I think Tony Romo is great. So is the NBC team. I'd like Joe Buck and Troy Aikman more if they weren't forced to call Cowboys games every other week.

 

Basically, anyone except for Mike Tirico and whatever dorks ESPN gets for MNF (though I think they're better this year?).

[The_Admiral]

Tirico is great at what he does, and it was never more evident than when he spot-started an NHL on NBC game and was immediately among the best NHL broadcasters without having done a hockey game before. He could end up replacing Emrick just as a side gig.

[sky1324]

Tony Romo is great, I actually enjoy listening to him. Troy Aikman and Joe Buck are terrible and calling them Fox's A-Team is less of a compliment and more of a poor reflection on Fox. Joe Buck has zero passion for the game and Aikman's "analysis" is usually obvious to anyone even decently familiar with football. Even worse is Tiki Ronde Barber, who's such an obvious homer for the Bucs it makes the games actively unpleasant to watch.

[GDAWG]

1 hour ago, sc49erfan15 said:

I really, really don't get the hate for Joe Buck.

 

I don't think he's great or anything, but listening to him call a game doesn't make my ears bleed. He's fine. People just like to complain.

 

One of the main criticisms of Joe Buck is that he's too much of a baseball guy.

[The_Admiral]

17 minutes ago, QCS said:

 Even worse is Tiki Barber, who's such an obvious homer for the Bucs it makes the games actively unpleasant to watch.

Pretty sure that's Ronde Barber.

 

Tiki Barber, there's another Giants guy that television executives just couldn't wait to make a mainstream star out of. He was a correspondent for the Today Show for like three weeks and then everyone decided not to bother after all. Maybe he commiserated with Chelsea Clinton.

[ninersdd]

Pittsburgh-Baltimore tentatively moved to Tuesday Night. No way Dallas-Baltimore goes on Thursday.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

1 minute ago, ninersdd said:

Pittsburgh-Baltimore tentatively moved to Tuesday Night. No way Dallas-Baltimore goes on Thursday.

 

So Dallas effectively gets another bye. How is that fair to the rest of the NFC East?

 

A forfeit would have been easier.

[ninersdd]

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

Pretty sure that's Ronde Barber.

 

Tiki Barber, there's another Giants guy that television executives just couldn't wait to make a mainstream star out of. He was a correspondent for the Today Show for like three weeks and then everyone decided not to bother after all. Maybe he commiserated with Chelsea Clinton.

IIRC, didn't he cheat on his pregnant wife with an intern while at NBC? It seemed like public opinion of him sank after that.

[See Red]

I don't have a problem with any of the NFL's announcing crews.  I'm not a fan of the MNF crew but they're so much better than Tess and Booger that they get a pass.  College football, with all of its televised games, is when you really start to get into the bad commentary with Petras Papadakis, Dan Orlovsky, or Gary Danielson, who makes every game about Alabama whether or not they're playing in it.

[Kramerica Industries]

1 hour ago, QCS said:

Tony Romo is great, I actually enjoy listening to him. Troy Aikman and Joe Buck are terrible and calling them Fox's A-Team is less of a compliment and more of a poor reflection on Fox. Joe Buck has zero passion for the game and Aikman's "analysis" is usually obvious to anyone even decently familiar with football. Even worse is Tiki Ronde Barber, who's such an obvious homer for the Bucs it makes the games actively unpleasant to watch.

 

If it makes you feel any better, Ronde doesn't call games for Fox anymore. I do tend to agree though that he had a hard time ever criticizing Bucs players, even though the team was generally terrible. And, coincidence or not, he got an awful lot of Bucs games.

[Sec19Row53]

Chris Myers. Awful.

[DEAD!]

1 hour ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

So Dallas effectively gets another bye. How is that fair to the rest of the NFC East?

 

A forfeit would have been easier.

A forfeit would be the only  way Dallas could  beat Baltimore... 

[GDAWG]

3 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

So Dallas effectively gets another bye. How is that fair to the rest of the NFC East?

 

A forfeit would have been easier.

 

It has moved to December 7th, which is a Monday.

[The_Admiral]

3 hours ago, ninersdd said:

IIRC, didn't he cheat on his pregnant wife with an intern while at NBC? It seemed like public opinion of him sank after that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiki_Barber#Personal_life

 

In the May 30, 2011 issue of Sports Illustrated, Barber described hiding out with Johnson in his agent Mark Lepselter's attic so that he would not get caught.[48] Barber was quoted as saying that "Lep's Jewish, and it was like a reverse Anne Frank thing."

 

Dudes Rock

[BBTV]

So are Steelers and Ravens playing Tuesday regardless of who's healthy and who's not?  I find it hard to believe that everyone on the Ravens that's so far tested positive is going to be all good by Tuesday, and even if they are, is it "in the best interest of player safety" to put guys out there that haven't practiced in a week and probably weren't at 100% physically for a while?  

 

Taking legalities out of the equation, the humane thing to do would be to forfeit the game, give the Ravens the L, and let them focus on getting their guys ready for their game against Dallas at its regular time.  Now two "innocent"* teams are being inconvenienced because of Baltimore's lack of controls.

 

*looks like the Steelers have a few guys on the Covid list too, but haven't heard of an outbreak or anything that would impact their ability to play... yet.