AQB Reviews Wild-Card Weekend

A Wild Weekend
AQB Reviews TV's Coverage Of This Year's Wild-Card Games.

NEW YORK (AQB)--Some thoughts, notes and reactions from my view on the couch on television's coverage of wild-card weekend in the NFL.

ABC did a good job on the biggest story of the weekend, Tennessee's "immaculate deception."

Like most viewers, play-by-play announcer Mike Patrick thought it was a forward pass as the return was occurring. I know I did. Even after the first couple of replays, analyst and former Buffalo Bill Paul Maguire still seemed to think it was a pass. However, analyst Joe Theismann was the first in the booth to argue that it was a lateral.

ABC's replays - and there were enough of them - eventually showed conclusively that the play was inconclusive at best. Give ABC credit for having some very good looks.

The only flaw in ABC's coverage was that the network missed showing some of referee Phil Luckett's ruling after the replay delay. You could hear him, though. Overall, ABC came up big at what might turn out to be the most crucial point of the playoffs.

Is it me or is "forward lateral" an oxymoron?

Right before the fateful kickoff, Maguire asked "Does [Buffalo head coach] Wade Phillips look like a genius?" Phillips may have looked smart on starting quarterback Rob Johnson instead of Doug Flutie, but he didn't look so bright a few minutes later when he decided on the short, pooch kick with 16 seconds left. Even the guys in the booth said before the kickoff that the Bills should knock it deep.

I wonder what Phillips said at halftime to Solomon Wilcots after the sideline reporter asked him about possibly replacing Johnson with Flutie. Wilcots only said about the exchange, "I can't even tell you what he said to me because it wasn't kind."

Boomer Esiason may have to deal with another analyst next year in the booth, but he doesn't have to worry about any competition from 49er quarterback Steve Young, who was Albert Gore-like in his studio analyst debut Saturday. He did, though, make one good point about Tennessee rookie Jevon Kearse being a great pass rusher on grass, as oppose to other great pass rushers, such as the Giants' Lawrence Taylor and the Eagles' Reggie White, who did it mostly on turf.

Didja notice that Al Michaels noted during a scrum-filled third quarter in the Redskins-Lions game that "this looks like the WWF right now"? How would Michaels know what the WWF looks like? Is the Monday Night Football announcer spending time watching wrestling instead of football, like some of Monday Night's audience seems to be?

Best exchange of the weekend: Al to Boomer after Esiason tried once again to explain how Detroit might come back, "Boomer, I love the way you try to keep an audience."

"I'm trying, man," Boomer replied desperately.

Why the fascination with close-ups in football coverage? The best way to understand the game is to see the whole field. That's why coaches use that high view of the field to scout players.

Yet, when Detroit quarterback Gus Frerotte was seemingly getting sacked on every play against Washington, ABC didn't show - and Boomer Esiason never explained - whether it was Washington's pass rush or bad decisions by Frerotte that was causing the sacks.

All ABC had to do was show the viewers what Frerotte was seeing down field.

I'm no doctor but it seems to me that those bright, white flashes that ABC used to separate highlights on Sunday's games could cause epileptic seizures in children.

Can someone explain Magnolia to me? My wife and I went to see the new movie after the Redskins-Lions game - my reward to her for letting me sit on my butt all day - and I think I need instant replay to understand what the hell was going on at the end.

On second thought, replay would probably prove to be inconclusive anyway.

By the way, when did it become vogue for Hollywood to make movies the length of football games? At least, football games have built in commercial/bathroom breaks.

It pains me to say, but Pat Summerall isn't a very good announcer anymore. He is often late on calls and wrong on naming players. I have watched and admired Summerall my entire football-viewing life, but he's no longer the No. 1 announcer that he once was.

What makes it even harder for me to say that is Summerall has been warm and generous in his handful of dealings with AQB - as he apparently is with everyone - but even the nicest guys grow old.

Fox does many things right in its football coverage, but one thing it still hasn't mastered is the use of sideline reporters. They always seem to break in at odd moments and rarely provide any useful information.

For example, Ron Pitts and D.J. Johnson, on the sidelines of the Vikings-Cowboys game Sunday, broke in after back-to-back plays to describe how loud the Metrodome stadium was.

First, that is not news in the Metrodome, commonly considered one of the loudest places in the NFL.

Second, they were standing right next to each other. Wouldn't it have been smarter to have one reporter cover one team's sideline and the other on the other side.

Third, they tried to prove how loud the dome was by having Pitts give the report and Johnson, standing next to Pitts, say that he couldn't hear him. How lame.

Fox did a nice job showing how Dallas center Mark Stepnoski bobs his head before snapping the ball in shotgun formations, sometimes drawing the defense offsides. John Madden then took it a step further by noting that Stepnoski does it all the time and then wondering if it was legal.

Madden is still one of the best analysts in the NFL, but he doesn't criticize poor play as much as he once did. For example, on a Robert Smith touchdown in the first half, Madden seemingly went out of his way to give credit to nearly every Viking when, really, the play's success came down to Dallas defensive back George Teague blowing an open-field tackle on Smith. Fox studio analyst Howie Long said as much at halftime.

Hmm... Didja hear Madden call Moss "the most dangerous player in all of football"?

Was it important for viewers to see Miami head coach Jimmy Johnson after every play? CBS seemed to think so...

Was it me or did it seem like Phil Simms was pulling for Miami on Sunday? I never believe that an announcer is rooting for one side or another - especially an announcer of Simms' quality - but it sure seemed to me that he was spending a lot more time talking about the Dolphins than about the Seahawks.

Funniest moment: Tennessee's Frank Wycheck, who tossed the game-winning lateral, said on CBS at halftime of the Dolphins-Seahawks game Sunday that the return play is called "Home Run Throwback." To which, Tennessee's Kevin Dyson, who caught the game-winning lateral, said, "Is that what it's called?"

Actually, I guess that's not too funny to Buffalo fans.