(So yeah -- here is a
piece I wrote for FO that will probably never get published since it is too
goofy. Of course, that makes it perfect for VP. Mmm...sloppy seconds. -BB)
Hey! Welcome to the first One Game At A Time, where I, your smarmy host, take a look at the television presentation of one contest each week in excruciating detail. The idea next season is to watch as many different crews, networks, and teams as possible to see how the stories surrounding the game are interwoven into the action itself by the commentators and production. In addition, I will offer up my analysis of the commercials and try and make some salient points about the football, too.
In what may be an attempt to jinx this column, the "test run", if you will, was the Jets-Dolphins game from Christmas Night, which the Jets won 13-10. For those of you that didn't watch the game, it took place under a torrential downpour for about two and a half quarters, dramatically affecting the quality of play.
The commentary team, though, were the reason why I chose to start with this game. Underneath ESPN's hood for the broadcast were Mike Tirico, Tony Kornheiser, and Joey Theismann, in their last performance of the season. Now, there was some criticism of Kornheiser's performance at the beginning of the season, but it's unfair to judge a guy in his first game or two in a booth. In this, his last game of the regular season, some rapport should be expected. I found that there was some, but it fluctuated in quality. At times, he was the best man in the booth -- at times, he was the worst. But I'll get to that in a bit.
Game Notes
There were three big matchups in this game: Jason Taylor vs. D'Brickashaw Ferguson, Chad Pennington vs. Mother Nature, and Joey Harrington vs. Nick Saban's Trigger Finger.
I've seen a whole bunch of Dolphins games this year, and
it's hard for me to argue against people wanting to throw Jason Taylor's name
into the hat for Defensive MVP. The guy is fantastic. He can be neutralized,
though, the same way that you can neutralize most great pass rushers -- run
right at them.
What makes
As for the pass rush?
Pennington, meanwhile, struggled with the conditions.
Normally, the Jets build an offense around Pennington's strengths and
limitations: he throws slants to Coles, curls and ins
to Jerricho Cotchery and Chris Baker, screens with
During the first half, Pennington threw a slant to Coles that was ugly-looking -- it was a plodding pass. Because the Dolphins weren't bumping Coles at the line, he was free to make the catch. Shortly thereafter, they started doing so and ended up with the next Coles slant nearly being intercepted.
What made it worse is when Pennington put his receivers in awful positions on back-to-back plays: a screen pass where Leon Washington had to stop to catch the ball, was decked, and lost four yards, and a short in to Coles where he was leveled by Zach Thomas and missed two series because of it. These weren't plays where Pennington was putting touch on his passes, but instead throws where Pennington simply needed more zip on the ball and risked his teammates' health as a result.
Once the weather died down, though, Pennington improved. The highlight was a gorgeous touch pass inbetween the linebackers and safeties to Cotchery for the Jets' lone touchdown. It was as good, if not better, than Tom Brady's throw to David Thomas the day before.
As for Harrington, he got to suffer through the first half downpour, and I thought he was actually decent: he checked down on almost every play, even if it meant getting three on 3rd and 5, but there wasn't the same fear that he was going to injure his teammates like Pennington did. Pennington's QB rating was 45.0, Harrington's, 27.4. Harrington was replaced by Cleo Lemon to start the second half. Lemon had a good play fake, and got better as the game went along, but he's never going to be a starter in the NFL. He goes through his progressions like they needed to be input into a punch card machine. Think "Real Poor Man's Josh McCown".
Presentation
The player-spoken introductions for each team were actually
pretty funny.
The halftime segment was real bizarre, though. I haven't seen a lot of the Sunday Night games this year, so I'm not sure if this is new or not, but had these strange graphic effects overlaid on some of the big plays. A long run got the Sonic the Hedgehog-I'm-running-really-fast-legs, and a solid throw earned the laser beam following the ball into the receiver's hands as if ESPN had licensed the FOX laser hockey puck technology from the early nineties.
Jimmy Kimmel did an absolutely gruesome segment and then saved it at the end, when he threw it back to "Terry, Howie, Cris, and JB". That was funny.
The great crowd shot of the night for ESPN was when they got a reaction shot following a big Dolphins play and found the one guy at the Jets-Dolphins game that was drinking a beer out of a Patriots cozie.
Suzy Kolber and Michelle Tafoya were doing double-duty on the sidelines and, well, it was neither of their nights. They got to hit the showers shortly after halftime. When Tafoya was introduced, she looked like she'd been hit by a hurricane. Her hair was a mess, she was all over the place verbally, and because it was pouring and someone was holding an umbrella for her, she was about six inches from the camera and it looked like she was imitating the famous scene from Blair Witch.
Kolber, meanwhile, got the task of interviewing Venus and Serena Williams and making it relevant to the game. She was not up to the task. She asked them what it was like to have ten guys pounding on them because they've been injured a lot. Right. Their response was a long pause and "We don't know!" The interview ended shortly thereafter. I am normally a fan of Kolber on the sideline, but this wasn't one of her better nights.
Commentary
Tirico is probably getting a pass this season for not being Bryant Gumbel, but he really brought nothing to the table here. I'll get to his coup de grace at the end, but he ended the first series with a great ol' meaningless "Wes Welker always gets as much as he can get out of a return". His other peak was when Cleo Lemon came in -- at the beginning of the third quarter, mind you -- and a clearly unprepared Tirico just started reading the Dolphins Media Guide on air. He talked about his parents' occupations, his college performance, pretty much everything except his hobbies and favorite Dolphins cheerleader. If he had kept going, he may legitimately have gone on to say "Continued on next page".
When Jets punter Ben Graham couldn't get the hold down on a field goal attempt and the Jets turned the ball over, Theismann yelled, "When will a coach listen to me and let a backup quarterback hold the ball since they handle the ball!" That's a little strange, since it's not as if there's never been a quarterback holding the ball before -- it was prevalent until recently, when punters became the primary holders for most teams. There are only four teams that use a quarterback as a holder, and there are several obvious reasons why: punters have the time at practice to hold the ball for kickers while backup quarterbacks are busy actually practicing, most teams don't want to have their backup quarterback injured holding the ball when he'll probably be needed to come in, and because punters handle the ball on snaps for punts. Furthermore, of all the players to criticize for not being able to handle the ball, you make a point when the former Australian Rules footballer loses one in a downpour? It was a poor battle to pick.
Theismann followed that on the next drive by insisting that Ronnie Brown would be sharing time with Ricky Williams next season and that there was no guarantee Brown would be the #1 back. Right.
The highlight of Theismann's night, though, was when Thomas laid out Coles with a fierce hit and ESPN returned from commercial with a replay of the hit and Thomas going over to talk to Nick Saban. Theismann did a voiceover for their conversation and it went like this:
Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the
house
We were rocking Jets.
End. This was even better because he had the entire commercial break to put this rhyme together and this was the best he could do. I loved this so much.
Theismann was otherwise competent. He said some stupid things -- talking about the Dolphins' ability to block the Jets front, which is true, but the Jets run defense sucks, so it's really anyone's ability -- and some smart ones, pointing out Kornheiser's misuse of statistics late in the game. When Kornheiser said that Olindo Mare's 25 yard field goal attempt wasn't automatic because Mare was 20-30 on the season, Theismann immediately pointed out that Mare had attempted five 50+ yard field goals on the season and that the way the Dolphins were using him affected his statistics. Imagine that!
Speaking of Kornheiser, well, he had his moments on both ends of the spectrum. After Pennington threw a wispy slant to Coles, Kornheiser said with absolute conviction in his voice, "This will sound horrible, but my daughter throws harder than him!" He may have been right at that point of the game. It depends on how Mangoldian his daughter is, I guess. Mangoldy? Manly?
Kornheiser's other
What was even better was when Young explained the physical intricacies of throwing a ball in wet weather -- how the forefinger that is normally used to push off is off-limits, and how the ball has to be spun out instead. This was precisely what Steve Young (or Joe Theismann) should have talked about. This is the maddening thing about when networks hire ex-players to present their coverage. Why is Shannon Sharpe doing voiceovers for highlight packages off of a Teleprompter? Is that what he's good at? Have you heard him? You know the answer. He's not trained for that! You know what he was good at? Being a tight end! Let the guy talk about what Jeremy Shockey needs to do to get open against the Eagles! Alternately, let him talk about what a stabilizing presence Rod Smith is in the locker room and how he'll guide the Broncos through adversity! Instead, you have Joe Theismann worrying about Olindo Mare's usage patterns and Tony Kornheiser making fun of Chad Pennington's arm strength.
My favorite interaction was when Cleo Lemon drove the Dolphins down the field in the fourth.
Kornheiser: If [Lemon] is so good, why haven't we seen him before?
Theismann: Because he's so young and Joey Harrington was the guy that they gave up a sixth round pick for, and they gave him a chance to play when Daunte Culpepper was hurt!
The matter-of-factness in Theismann's voice was so beautiful. Because he's so young! (Lemon's 27, Harrington's 28.) They gave up a sixth round pick for him! Sixth! I guarantee he had absolutely no idea that those weren't good excuses.
And, of course, no Jets commentary could go without a statement on the Nuge. As he kicked what would be the game-winning field goal through the uprights, Tirico complimented Nugent on, "...having developed into a guy worthy of being a second-round pick." They'll never learn. If I was in the booth, by the way, this is where I would've brought up ROBO-PUNTER.
Commercials
There was a bevy of quality commercials in this game. I think that the ratings being down a bit for the Christmas Night game (I couldn't find the numbers, sorry) led to some questionable ads getting NFL face time. And I am all for that.
One was for Blue Hippo, a company that offers loans for purchasing a computer to anyone with an active checking account. Oh, the vagaries of taxation. For some reason, the last scene in the commercial was a daughter asking her mother to use the computer and getting shot down. Blue Hippo: Your Mom Will Spend Eight Hours a Day on Myspace And You Will Not Get To Do Your Homework. And she'll have a much better layout than you, too.
Dr. Pepper, for some reason, purchased the rights to "Turning Japanese" solely so they could repeat the chorus line and change it from "Japanese" to "23". A few years back, one of my favorite bands, the <a href = "http://www.popmatters.com/music/interviews/american-analog-set-051201.shtml" target="_blank">American Analog Set</a>, offered Dr. Pepper a revisited version of an old jingle they used for free. (The interview I linked to also starts off with a lengthy discussion of their lead singer watching the Cowboys, magically enough.) Dr. Pepper declined, apparently so they could do things like this. Companies throw money away.
I'd rather be married to Randy McMichael than switch to Capital One. Sorry.
Miller Lite also advertised the fact that they've received a medal in the "World Beer Cup" for several years now. Can you imagine someone drinking Miller Lite and giving it an award? Did Miller Lite enter a batch gone bad as the opposition?
Another product that made it to a real-life NFL game was "Leak Ender 2000". The copyright for the commercial was for 1996. I wondered several things about Leak Ender 2000. Was there a sudden advance in leak stopping technology in the late 1990's? Was there some sort of futuristic dyke development I was unaware of? And, more importantly I suppose, has there been any further progress on leak stopping since the year 2000/1996? Am I comfortable using a product that was state of the leak ending art six years ago? I thought about it for a while and it turns out that when there's nothing left to leak, leaks end themselves. That's how the Lions are going to get better.
The two commercials that stood out, though, were a different class.
The first was for <a href = "http://www.12themahi.com">12themahi.com</a>. What does 12themahi.com do, you ask? They appear to be a pyramid scheme. What was it Joe Sheehan said about Americans? Economically illiterate bitches? Right.
The first scene features a couple upset that they can't afford a nook to their house. The camera stays on them about two seconds too long, at which point the man shrugs his shoulders in a way no man has ever shrugged his shoulders before, and visibly cracks himself up in the process.
When the man and woman go to the website, the camera pans back to the wife, whose eyes light up like Justin Timberlake had given her a special Christmas gift. She jumps on top of her husband and they are in utter bliss.
The second interaction is even better. Two women are on a porch talking about money. One says, "Dave has a great job, but we never have enough money! And with three kids, I don't think we can afford college!" This is great because these people are on a porch, hanging out, and presumably friends -- yet, somehow, this other woman, on a first-name basis with the wife's husband, was previously unaware that there were children in the family.
She is brought to the website by this not-very-good-friend and the next image is of her putting a graduation tassel on her son while MONEY FOR: COLLEGE EDUCATION is overlaid on the screen.
Apparently, the money was instantaneous. What makes me so sure? She's wearing the same exact outfit. It's not continuity issues, it's just the wonderful world of crappy commercials.
The other great commercial is for itsjustlunch.com, a dating company. The commercial starts with several people standing in a cubicle, hunched over a computer displaying what appears to be a Myspace profile in red, not blue. The person sitting at the computer is relaying the details of the profile, featuring the photo of a rather attractive, well-built guy in his late twenties. You know, the people who are going to faux-Myspace to get laid.
If you pause the commercial here and look at the right side of the screen is the "Loren Ipsum" dummy text that typesetters use. The left side lists "Dave's" interests, which made me laugh for about three minutes straight:
This was so glorious. From there, the people make fun of
Dave, Dave's bummed out about not getting laid, itsjustlunch.com
will help him, apparently. Now, if the commercial listed the Barbaro Message Board...