What follows is an answer to the chorus of complaints from the legions of fans that are tired of being distracted by “sensible” analysis backed by “facts” and “knowledge.” If you seek shelter from the twin storms that are “reality” and “logic,” then this is your port of call.
1) Last week’s game proved that I am, in fact, a prophet of some kind. As Mike Vanderjaaaaghaaathat’snotgoingin lined up for his kick, I turned to my friend and announced “Game over.”
Now, granted, I forgot to insert the remainder of the prophesy (a technicality), but I think we can all agree I should be the head of a major religion by tomorrow based solely on that.
2) As much as it pains me to admit this, I like Troy Aikman as an announcer, but apparently something about entering the broadcast booth requires that, on occasion, you ignore empirical evidence.
Case in point: When the (nicely thrown) long pass by Randle El resulted in a pass interference flag, Aikman questioned whether the pass was catchable. When shown ample video evidence that the pass was, in fact, rather catchable*, he insisted on sticking to his original statement. It’s OK to admit that you’re wrong, Troy. That was pass interference, and Michael Irvin is, in fact, an idiot.
3) Nick Novak (sort-of) applied the way I approach a PlayStation game to a real game (kind of): When he missed his first kick, he screamed that the game had cheated him, continued screaming a stream of mostly made-up obscenities (subsequently scaring his dog out of the room), threw the controller and hit reset to try again … I should mention here that he loosely based his approach on that scenario … with some minor tweaks.
4) Open letter to the Fox pre-game guys: Stop using your hands so much; it’s no longer a broadcasting secret, everyone knows what you’re doing, it’s creepy and there is an outside chance you’re unknowingly insulting your hearing-impaired viewers.
5) Addendum: Dear Mr. Bradshaw, you are NOT funny. At all. Not even a little bit, the laughter you hear in-studio is either (essentially) canned or people who are laughing for fear of being canned.
6) I recognize the business model that drives the need to show a commercial or two – or 412 – during a football broadcast, but why do advertisers think showing the same commercial 47 times in a three hour span is effective? We’re football fans and we’re not channel surfing during the game (except when the commercials come on), so I won’t be any more likely to buy a truck at 4PM than I was at 1PM. Stop it. I can’t see why my request won’t be heeded immediately.
*In the same way that a virulent flu strain running rampant in an old folks home is catchable
Edit: This blog was archived in May of 2016 from our original articles database.It was originally posted by Stephen Zorio