Unfortunately, another star NFL player went down with a serious injury on Sunday.
New York Giants star rookie running back Cam Skattebo was carted off in an air cast during the second quarter against the Philadelphia Eagles after an awkward tackle turned his ankle in a completely unnatural position. It was the latest in a long line of gruesome injuries so far this football season.
But to the credit of the NFL’s broadcast partners, replays of these gruesome injuries have become a bit of a faux pas. Networks have largely exercised more discretion when deciding how and when to show severe injuries this season. Fox continued that trend during Skattebo’s ankle injury on Sunday.
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After a short commercial break, Fox play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt informed viewers the network would not be showing a replay of Skattebo’s injury.
“Really a brutal scene here in Philadelphia as Cam Skattebo gets a standing ovation coming off. His teammates, coming up to dap him up. And an injury we’re not going to show you, it’s not pretty,” Burkhardt said.
Earlier this year, the same playbook has been deployed for other high-profile nasty injuries.
During a Week 6 game between the San Francisco 49ers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, CBS opted to show just one replay of star linebacker Fred Warner’s leg injury after returning from commercial break.
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“It’s a gruesome injury. We’ve had a chance to look at it from several angles and producer Jim Rykoff is going to show you just this one right here. His foot’s turned sideways,” CBS lead NFL announcer Jim Nantz says. “I think that, in the spirit of sensitivity, is all that we’re going to be comfortable showing you.”
Just a couple weeks prior, ESPN’s No. 2 Monday Night Football booth was dealt a similar circumstance as Miami Dolphins star wide receiver Tyreek Hill went down with a severe leg injury.
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“We’ll give you one look here. It’s an uncomfortable looking injury here,” Chris Fowler described. “There’s that left leg right there as he planted.”
These situations are tricky for networks. On the one hand, it’s their job to document what is happening on the field, and gruesome injuries are, unfortunately, part of football. On the other hand, it’s possible to convey that an injury was severe, perhaps even season-ending, without showing multiple angles of a replay. Instead, showing one replay, as CBS and ESPN did, seems to be a happy medium.
It’s also reasonable to take Fox’s route and simply not show the replay at all, as the network did with Skattebo. Viewers understand what’s happening when they see a player in an air cast getting carted off. There’s certainly an argument to be made that some replays aren’t necessary at all.
Regardless, networks have become a bit more responsible in these moments, probably for the better.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.