Sunday night, NBC officially became a born-again sports network, with the debut of “Football Night in America” at the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio.  The game  between the Eagles and Raiders lacked any compelling interest, other than it gave viewers a glimpse of what we may be able to expect from NBC in 2006.

On paper, NBC looks like it will put together a solid broadcast every week, with Bob Costas (thank you, Lord), Chris Collinsworth (he’s great because the players hate him), Jerome Bettis (he’s from Detroit, fyi), Sterling Sharpe (his brother has a big forehead) and Peter King (he writes about his pooping problems) all in studio.  The team of Michaels, Madden and Andrea Kramer (sidelines) will call the action.  NBC seems to be taking a no frills approach to the games, allowing the action on the field to serve as the storyline.  If that’s the case, it will be a welcome addition to the NFL season.  

Among other big changes on the NFL TV landscape include an NFL Network Thanksgiving Day tripleheader, former Fox studio host James Brown moving to CBS, the mystery of the Fox studio host, two New Year’s Eve doubleheaders, and the abolishment of the sideline reporter on NFL Network and CBS telecasts (again thank you, Lord).

And in case you hadn’t heard, ESPN is now the home of Monday Night Football.  As has been discussed previously, the Worldwide Leader in Sports is content in shoving MNF down our throats to the point of suffocation.  The new era in NFL history will commence on September 11th with a first ever MNF doubleheader – the games will also be broadcast in Spanish on ESPN Deportes.

Okay, fine.  Two football games?  No big deal, we guess.  If there was ever a way to overkill, that would be the correct way – with more games to watch.  And that’s pretty much where the good news ends on the ESPN front because for opening day, as well as every Monday thereafter, ESPN will begin the MNF pre-game show at 2:00 pm (CST).

That’s right; six hours of talking and meaningless stories involving 30 (THIRTY) (THREE-ZERO) on air commentators.  Translation: Media Circus staffers will sharpen our pencils, clear out our hard drives, and document mountains of stupidity every Monday.  

Six freaking hours!  We’re thinking the following is likely to take place during the pre-game show at least once every week…

Let’s now go live to Ed Werder who is standing by live in the Cowboys locker room.  Ed?

Boomer, I’m standing by live in the Cowboys locker room and I haven’t talked to Coach Parcells, T.O., or anyone because no one is here.  It’s still five and a half hours before game time.  But as soon as the players arrive, I’ll be sure and send out an alert on our phone service, and fill you in with meaningless information.  Back to you.

And as part of this new, fantastic ESPN MNF era, the network has decided to “update” the traditional Hank Williams, Jr. theme song by adding Little Richard and Cheap Trick into the mix.  Yes, the ‘updated’ theme song will include two musicians who were made famous in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s.  At least they look funny…



Are you ready for some overkill?  We sure can’t wait.

Crap that actually came from somebody’s mouth.
“(Alex Smith) had four times as many victories as Aikman did (in his rookie season).” – Woody Paige, explaining why Smith could be better than Troy Aikman

It should be noted that Aaron Brooks, Kyle Boller, and Tim Rattay all had four times as many wins as Aikman in their first 16 games as starter.  In other words, this is a stupid conversation - and that’s why it’s over.
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"We found we've lost some of the attitude we've projected in the past. Robots are sacred ground for that." – Gary Hartley, Senior VP of Foxsports

The senior vice president at Fox Sports honestly believes that the return of the Fox Scoreboard Robots gives his network back the attitude they’ve recently been lacking.

Wow.
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“I don't know a ton about Lidle, but I do think he'll be able to help them. He can give them some innings and help the rotation. If they can get him some runs, they can win.” – Joe Morgan, espn.com

It’s a well known fact that Morgan chats are a goldmine of incomplete thoughts and meaningless jargon, but, when asked your opinion on a pitcher answering, responding with “if they can get him some runs, they can win,” is pretty weak even by Joe’s standards.   
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"I love Manny because when he has a piece of wood in his hand he knows what to do with it." – John Kruk, ESPN

There’s just something strangely homoerotic about that quote.

The Experts in Something
Mottos amongst sports web sites aren’t something that we here at Joe Sportsfan headquarters take too much interest in.  Our motto, “celebrating the absurdity of professional sports” is more of a mission statement than anything.  After all, professional sports in 2006 are absurd, we think that absurdity should be celebrated.  
But on a recent trip around the web, one site slogan caught our attention.  The internet arm of St. Louis based sports magazine, The Sporting News has taken to calling itself, “The Experts’ Choice”.   

On the surface, there isn’t anything real notable about that, just a site that fancies itself a spot for sports experts.  But we found that the Sporting News might be taking their self appointed role as the Experts Choice a little overboard, when we counted 47 so-called “expert” writers on their roll call.  Having a few “experts” is expected in the sports internet market, having close to 50 means that you’re probably playing fast and loose with the definition.

Amongst the land of the “experts” reside characters like Caught on the Fly, the strange blog written by a man/woman who pretends to be a sports writing insect and who’s “bio” reads : “Lissen up, scrubeenies, I've got yer attitude right here!”

Expert?  Sure. At what?  We have no idea.  

Media Rant of the Week – The Hero Apologists
If there is one trend that seems to be distinguishing itself from the others in the modern sports media, it’s hero worship.  As has been documented here on several occasions, more and more, media types – writers, TV analysts, etc – are basically proclaiming their love for a given athlete thus becoming blind to anything regarding that player.  

This past week, we saw two of the more over-the-top hero worship articles dueling to see which one could out-crazy the other.  

Hero Worship Part 1 – Roger Clemens 
First up was Media Circus regular, Mike Celizic proclaiming from his perch at msnbc.com that the Houston Astros have done Roger Clemens a disservice by not trading him to a “contender”.  

It took only one sentence into the article to classify this one as garbage: 

"Roger Clemens has done everything he possibly can for the Houston Astros. But this year, the team’s management has done nothing for him.” 

“Nothing” according to Celizic apparently equates to the Astros allowing Clemens to dictate his own terms in re-signing (including missing the first two months of the season), paying him inordinately large sums of money, giving him the freedom to stay at home when the team is on the road, pitching next to his son in the minor leagues and taking him to the NLCS and World Series in his last two seasons.  Other than those things, they’ve done nothing.

“Sending him to the Red Sox or even the dreaded Yankees would have been not just the right thing to do, but the only thing to do.”

Celizic’s passion for east coast teams is no secret, and even after he admits in the column that the Astros have treated Clemens pretty well these past few years, he still views it as a crime that they didn’t trade him to the Red Sox or Yankees.  No player deserves to play out their career on a non-New York or Boston team.  That’s inhumane. 

Celizic even references the Astros late charge to get Miguel Tejada, but shuns it because they would have given up pitching to add offense.  In Mike’s world, a team’s duty to its legendary pitcher is to somehow manipulate other teams into sending along elite sluggers for nothing in return.  It’s the least they can do.  

Hero Worship Part 2 – Brett Favre

If the Associated Press ever ranked athletes that are verbally fornicated by the media, Brett Favre would likely be number one.   Sporting News.com’s Dan Pompei is no stranger to the Favre man love that afflicts so many journalists.  

In his recent article, he takes the increasingly difficult stance of defending Favre’s horrendous 2005 season by blaming it on Favre’s uber-competitiveness. 

“The trend is obvious. As the lights kept growing dimmer for the Packers, both in the course of games and the season, Favre played with an absence of caution that was appropriate but rare, especially for a veteran.”  

Here are some other beauties Pompei throws out to defend his position…

“Only four of Favre's interceptions came when the Packers were winning.”

Upon a closer look, as Pompei fails to note, Favre had 491 pass attempts when behind (or tied) versus 116 attempts while ahead.  That may have something to do with the gap in total interceptions in each scenario.  He threw picks in 5% of his attempts while losing compared to 3.5% of his attempts while winning.  Not a huge difference.

“His passer rating was 86.5 when the Packers had a lead and 61.2 when they trailed.” 

Stats like these are always fun because the writer never provides any context.  Is this good or bad? Turns out Aaron Brooks had similar numbers for the Saints (85.1 / 67.2), so should we assume that he was just trying extra hard when behind too?

Most QB’s in the league were pretty even in QB rating when winning and losing, the kind of consistency that we’d assume teams appreciate.  What this number supposedly tells us about Favre we still haven’t figured out.

“He threw 15 touchdown passes in the team's first eight games and only five in its last eight.” 

This one doesn’t make a whole lot of sense considering the Packers were 1-7 in the first eight games and 3-5 in the last eight.  If anything this stat might point to the Packers being more successful when Favre wasn’t throwing as much.

To further justify his position, Pompei leaned on some misinformed quotes from team officials: 

“(Favre) acknowledged he was taking chances he wouldn't have taken if the game was close or if we were ahead," (Packers QB coach Tom) Clements says.

Well, by that comment, you’d think Favre’s irresponsibility with the ball stemmed from being blown out frequently, but in eight of their 12 losses, the Packers lost by one touchdown or less, five of those games by a field goal or less.  They also won four games, so 12 of 16 games were either close losses or wins, directly refuting the claim that Favre’s picks were primarily due to erratic play in blowouts.

It’s amazing what a Favre-loving media member can do with the statistics to shape an argument in Brett’s defense.  

We Would Have Bet all our Money Mark Schlereth Wrote this Book

Bob Carpenter Memorial Snappy Line - Chasing Snappiness
As Chase Utley reached closer to Joe Dimaggio’s hitting streak, headline writers across the country strapped on their snappy caps to intertwine brilliant wit and the second baseman’s name.  Thanks to USA Today, FSN, ESPN, Deadspin, and Sports Illustrated (twice) for these beauties:

“Phils hit machine giving chase” 
“Still Chasing: Utley extends hitting streak to 34 games” 
“The Chase is on.”
“Chase of a lifetime”
“Utley Continues the Chase as Phillies Win.”
“The Chase is over – Utley’s hit streak ends at 35.”

For the second consecutive week, Robert C gives a thumbs up and wink, but holds off on the shooting the gun point pose.  He does add, however, that these headlines writers are ‘chasing snappiness lore’.  Kudos to all headline writers who contributed this week – who and wherever you are.