Yes, there are certainly terrible individuals in the broadcasting world, and there are a few bad duos as well, but I don’t think it’s possible to assemble a team as bad as the one that called the Jets-Bengals game. Tom Hammond is usually pretty good, but no one could stop the trainwreck that was Joe Gibbs and Joe Theismann.
There were a ton of notable mistakes, but none more glaring than the following two. Not only could they not figure out who threw the touchdown pass to Dustin Keller (Brad Smith or Sanchez) in the second quarter, but they even praised Marvin Lewis’ idiotic decision to challenge challenge an almost meaningless play, and waste his last challenge….in the first quarter. Via the NY Times….
Gibbs and Theismann offered decent but unmemorable analysis. Theismann displayed how much more accurate the erratic Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer’s passing is when he follows through; both described how the Jets were running behind their offensive line to the left, six days after succeeding against the Bengals to the right.
But they were late in recognizing the seriousness of the gamble taken by Bengals Coach Marvin Lewis in using his challenges too early — in fact, Theismann said the second challenge was a good one without saying how the decision might hurt him later.
Then, he and his old coach did not revisit the subject late in the fourth quarter when Chad Ochocinco was ruled out of bounds on an attempted touchdown pass.
Not enough video analysis was given by NBC to determine if the call was right.
Joe Gibbs southern drawl was way too slow, which then allowed Theismann to interrupt him just about every single play. Theismann even took it upon himself to do play-by-play when it wasn’t warranted. Basically he couldn’t shut the “F” up, which is nothing new.
I know it can be tough to throw teams together at the last minute (just ask TBS Baseball), but everyone knew this was a terrible idea from the get go. NBC probably should have just gone with its full College Football announcing team, but they tried to get cute, and it turned out terribly. That didn’t seem to stop people from watching though. NBC posted the best Wild Card ratings in 10 years.
Redskins Reunion in the Booth Doesn’t Quite Click (NY Times)
