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Seahawks 24 Redskins 14 Fox only considers its team of Sam Rosen and Jerry Glanville to be its fourth best, and that may be so. Rosen is generally a solid but unspectacular play-by-play announcer, while Glanville forgets names, including team names sometimes, and occasionally tries to hard to be funny. However, I really enjoyed their telecast Sunday of the Redskins-Seahawks. Rosen ably described the action, while Glanville wasn’t afraid to express his opinion and made many insightful observations. Plus - and this is rarer in the NFL than a Eagles win - they are willing to be quiet. Rosen occasionally lets the play speak for itself, while Glanville doesn’t have the urge to comment after every play. Are you listening to the silence, Monday night guys? Like I said, Rosen and Glanville aren’t perfect. They made a lot of mistakes in naming players, especially for a network team. Rosen once called Redskin running back Terry Allen “Larry Allen,” while Glanville said “Trent Johnson” instead of Tre Johnson, an offensive lineman for the Redskins. In those instances, both announcers quickly corrected themselves; other times, though, they didn't. Also, Glanville seemed to have forgotten the name of the Seahawks momentarily, although he may have been trying to be funny. Despite the mistakes, I found Rosen and Glanville entertaining and interesting. Some highlights and lowlights: Glanville observations:
Glanville Opinions:
Good quote, wrong information: After Broussard’s kickoff return, Glanville said “Well, you can tell the type of coach, I was. I drafted Broussard No. 1 and never let him return a kick. ... That’s why I’m with you, Sam.” Sounds great, right? At halftime, Glanville said he found out that Broussard returned three kicks for him, averaging 15 yards. Ooops. Good graphic: 1. Before the game, a graphic showed Norv Turner was 4-0 in domed stadiums. 2. A fourth quarter graphic showed that this season, Seattle (now 3-0) is a plus eight in the turnover margin, while Washington (now 0-3) is a negative eight. 3. The last time Washington started the season 0-3 was 1981. It finished 8-8. The last time Seattle started 3-0 was 1986. 4. I liked the split-screen Fox used, called Fox In Sync, which showed Seahawks quarterback Warren Moon in one completing a pass to Joey Galloway in the other screen. Jerryisms: 1. When only one of three officials signaled a touchdown, Glanville said “the other two’s guns are stuck in their holders.” 2. On Redskins receiver Leslie Shepherd limping back to the huddle, “Now he’s got a hitch in his get-along.” Glanville said Shepherd got hurt because he wasn’t being active near the action. “You get near the football, you better play.” Glitches: 1. No game clock going to first commercial. 2. Fox has an annoying habit of trying to fit as many commercials as it can before going back to the action. A couple of times, this caused Fox to almost miss or miss a little bit of the first play. Halftime snafu: Fox showed at halftime the controversial play in which umpires took a home run away from Mark McGwire because of fan interference. However, viewers could not tell what happened on the replay because Fox kept its scroll running at the bottom of the screen. That’s a bad job. Waxing about Moon: I was surprised that Glanville didn’t reminisce more about his days in Houston with quarterback Warren Moon, now leading Seattle’s offense. At Houston, Glanville was the defensive coach from 1984-86 and head coach from 1986-1989. Moon was quarterback there from 1984-93. Glanville did mention a couple of interesting things:
Jerry Joke: While trying and failing to be humorous many times, the funniest thing Glanville said came after Rosen corrected Glanville that the new additions to the Seahawks offensive line make $5 million, not the $1 million Glanville originally said. “I was thinking about your new contract,” Glanville said to Rosen. Huh?: After the Redskins first missed field goal, Glanville said “wide right, I think.” Well, given the location of the kick, it was either good or wide right. And because the referees ruled that it was no good, that means it must have been wide right. Nice job explaining the obvious. Grade: B, While I find Glanville annoying at times on HBO’s “Inside the NFL,” I enjoyed his telecast with Rosen. Return
to top By George Stahl More than any other NFL pregame show, "Monday Night Blast" tries to walk the thin line between being informative to hard-core football fans and interesting to casual fans. The show's main goal, though, is always to make the upcoming game compelling enough to force the casual fan to watch; however, by doing so, the pregame show can be frustrating and disappointing to hard-core fans, whom ABC knows it doesn't have to placate to keep watching. However, by Monday Night's ratings so far this year, it doesn't seem like ABC is doing a good job keeping the casual fan. Ratings for the first two weeks are down 2% to 13.8 from 14.1 a year ago. (Of course, there are factors other than the pregame show to consider, such as moving the starting time up an hour and last week's blowout by San Francisco.) Monday night's pregame show, hosted as always by Chris Berman with a weekly cameo from Frank Gifford, was again a mixed bag. It included a nice piece on Jason Garrett, who is filling in for injured Dallas Cowboy quarterback Troy Aikman, and his father, Jim, who is a Cowboys scout and former New York Giant teammate of ABC's Frank Gifford. The timely piece chonicled Garrett's rise from starting quarterback of Princeton to this week's starting quarterback of Dallas. The "Bio Blast" featured Giants linebacker Jesse Armstead, who was a good choice by ABC because he is one of the best unknown stars in the league. I enjoyed the "Bio Blast" segment, which has improved in the three weeks since the first one with Drew Bledsoe. After that, you had your mandatory self-serving, self-promoting Disney piece. This week, it was Michael J. Fox of ABC's "Spin City" working out with the Giants. The jokes were obvious and predictable. And, oh yeah, by the way, Fox's show has its season premiere tomorrow. Ah, family ties. Grade: C+/B-. Unfortunately for real fans, because of the show's agenda to appeal to casual fans, the Blast probably won't get much better than this. Return
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By George Stahl The Cowboys-Giants game was filled with more punts than big plays, which may have been one reason why ABC’s threesome of Al Michaels, Dan Dierdorf and Boomer Esiason seemed to sleep walk through Monday’s telecast. It certainly isn’t easy to do a dull game well, but that was ABC’s challenge Monday night. And like the Giants last night, it wasn’t up to it. After the first quarter, I saw no score on the scoreboard and few notes on my note pad. Michaels pointed out soon afterward that there were 10 punts in the first 20 minutes and 38 seconds of the game. Yawn. The game’s dullness dulled Michaels’ play-by-play, which couldn’t even get energized during the few exciting plays, such as Sanders’ two big punt returns (one for a touchdown) and his interception returned for a touchdown. Plus, he seemed slower than normal in describing the action. Things got so slow in the first half that the threesome was reduced to asking baseball trivia questions. Who are the five pitchers who faced Roger Maris and Mark McGwire? And who is the only one to face Maris, McGwire and Sosa? Answers below. Instead of answering the questions quickly, ABC unnecessarily turned the quiz into an all-night affair, suggesting that viewers would continue to watch a lifeless football game in order to get the answers to two baseball questions. ABC no doubt frustrated millions of viewers who wanted the answer before changing channels or going to bed. I have no problem with them asking the questions and letting people think about it, but answer the question in due time, please. Two-and-a-half hours later ain't due time. In case you missed it, and who could blame you, the five pitches to face McGwire and Maris are Tommy John, Phil Niekro, Joe Niekro, Nolan Ryan and Don Sutton. And Ryan is the only pitcher to face Sosa, McGwire and Maris. Esiason continues to have some rookie problems. He redescribes too many replays, instead of adding insight. For example, after a Giants blitz through the middle of the Cowboys line, Dierdorf set Esiason up by saying, “There’s your pressure blitz up the middle, Boomer.” To which, Esiason responded, “Whoa, man.” Esiason then redescribed the play over the replay, adding little insight. When Esiason was done, Dierdorf used the remaining seconds before the next play's snap to explain one reason why the Giants were successful. I also was a little surprised that Esiason didn’t tell more stories about Giant coach Jim Fassel, who was offensive coordinator with the Cardinals while Esiason was there. As we said before, we think Esiason is going to be good. From the beginning of the game last night, he was criticizing the Giants offensive line and their poor pass protection. The line’s ineffectiveness proved to be a recurring theme and a key part of the Cowboys success Monday night. After Cowboy quarterback Jason Garrett was called for drawing the Giants offsides by moving his knees, Esiason pointed out that defensive linemen look at the quarterback's legs to get a jump on the snap. Another thing that Esiason has done well this season is make Dierdorf more bearable. I think Dierdorf, whom I was never a big fan of, is having his best year in a while. He isn’t using the superlative nearly as much as he had before, and he is working better with Esiason than he had with Gifford. One disappointment has been sideline reporter Lesley Visser, who contributes little from the sidelines. When Sanders and Cowboy running back Emmitt Smith were out in the second quarter, she did not come on to say what was wrong. Michaels reported injury information that he got “from the sideline” but never attributed it to Visser. Then, when they did go to her on the sidelines, she gave background information on Giant quarterback Danny Kannell, whom she featured earlier in ESPN’s “Monday Night Countdown.” It added little value to what was going on in the game. At halftime, she finally updated the Cowboys injury situation, but that was too late. It also was the last time we saw Visser until her interview with Sanders after the game. Visser is a solid reporter, ABC should try to get her more involved. Highlights and lowlights from Monday night: Best graphic: The Giants have not had any offensive players in the Pro Bowl since Phil Simms, Bart Oates and Jumbo Elliott in 1993. Glitches: In the second quarter, the down was wrong in the time/score box. It said third down when it was second. Good line: Michaels on the fair catch called by Cowboy Kevin Mathis, “There wasn’t a Giant within a borough of him.” Things that make you go hmm:
Huh?:
1. Esiason on Strahan knocking down a pass at the line of scrimmage.
“[Giants defensive lineman Michael Strahan] made a play just like
that and took it in for six.” Wrong! Strahan returned an interception
for a touchdown earlier this season when he dropped back in a zone
blitz to cover a Redskin tight end in man-to-man coverage. He did
not, however, get a touchdown by intercepting a pass at the line
of scrimmage. Nice Shots:
1. Wide-eyed Cowboy receiver Billy Davis looking for teammates and/or
flags after 80-yard touchdown reception. Unanswered
questions: 1. What happen to the Toyota Halftime Report? Why
is it now Lexus? Grade: B-. ABC can’t be blamed for a dull game, but it can be cited for not rising above it.
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