THE NFL 2017 Season

Oh boy, now I get to listen to two former Cowboys quarterbacks yammer at me between plays. My cup runneth over.

Isn’t it awesome???

— Alan

Who is the other Cowboy quarterback who does commentary?

OK I honestly don’t know if you’re screwing with me, but just in case - Aikman, dude.

Huh. Interesting. I like his commentary. Aikman was before my time. I only started paying attention to Football in 2006 onward. Before that I used to watch the Super Bowl every year, but only for the commercials.

I don’t even dislike Aikman, he just has very little of interest to say. Probably would work better paired with someone with more presence but for some reason they stuck him with Joe Buck. As far as Romo goes, he’ll probably be a step up from Phil Simm’s free association style of commentary.

I mean, really, do those guys ever come up with anything interesting, novel, or worthwhile?

Understand I’m not criticizing them, so much as the media environment that forces them to be like that, or companies to hire persons like that.

There’s an argument to be made there, but I mean it’s not like these guys are going away. God forbid we have a moment of dead air, let’s have some meatheads ramble a while. That said, I like Chris Collinsworth, I like Al Michaels, I like anyone who has a perspective even if I disagree with it. Hell, I liked Dennis Miller, at least he was interesting.

Collinsworth and Al Michaels are definitely my favorite as well.

I do wish I’d started watching Football in the era when Madden was a commentator, just because I want to know why people used to make fun of him so much.

Collinsworth actually brings some insight to both the strategic level of the game as well as the players’ view from the ground. He’s probably my favorite commentator in any sport.

Sims was the worst. I guess you can’t do it any more, but the old game was to count/drink the times he uses the word “football.” It’s his “uh.” “See, the way you the Giants are trying to win this football game is by throwing the football downfield. Can’t move the chains without moving the football through the air.”

Okay, the bucket thing is amazing. I’m actually totally on board with that.

My favorite Madden-ism that I experienced live was his assertion that Team A was trying to win the game by scoring more points than Team B. That was truly a grandmaster-level insight.

In a way, I’ll kind of miss Simms. But mostly not so much.

I like both the Michaels/Collinsworth and Buck/Aikman broadcast teams, but I agree that Simms is terrible no matter who he’s paired with. So Jim Nantz/Tony Romo has got to be an improvement.

One of my favorite madden comments was a Packer game broadcast if I remember right. It was extremely cold and the camera was zoomed in on the line and a few of the linesmen had snot literally running down their faces and through their facemasks. So in typical Madden style he was circling who had more snot coming out and rating them on their effort in the cold related to that.

He was in a league of his own.

You also have to account for it being the last 5 minutes of a Super Bowl. There was no doubt who was going to win. There was no real football left to analyze. And bucket baths for the coach was a new thing back then. Madden was fun, whether the game was or not.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/13/523813934/steelers-chairman-dan-rooney-one-of-the-finest-men-in-nfl-history-dies-at-84

That headline should say “former chairman” since he hasn’t been in day-to-day operations since 2003.

It appears Marshawn Lynch and the Raiders have tentatively agreed to terms, but need to finalize a contract and deal with his Seattle status.

Google has an entire page of animated gifs of Marshawn falling into the endzone grabbing his crotch.

Aaron Hernandez committed suicide in his prison cell.