Norman Chad & Ron Jaworski? New NFL coverage on ESPN/ABC

[private joker]

I don't know if this move has been discussed yet, but the linked piece pretty much reads like an Onion article, it's so ridiculous.

The jist of it is the WSOP producer is taking over ESPN and ABC's football programming, and will broadcast it like the final table -- edited, showing only the "interesting" plays, and adding human interest stories as well as comedian announcers like Robin Williams.

After I fainted, I came back to consciousness and realized that yes, this is horrible.

First of all, for fans who can get the game live (via NFL packages on satellite or whatever), they won't bother with this. For those who can't, they'll get the score anyway through other means and thus watching the game on a delay will suck.

Secondly, they tried comedy in the booth with Dennis Miller and it didn't work.

Thirdly, the interesting plays are often only interesting because of the drive that led up to it. I don't want an editor telling me that I don't need to see that hit Merriman put on Culpepper, or that it doesn't matter whether or not I see Houshmanzadeh's dropped pass on a second and long.

It's like poker -- poker fans hate WSOP coverage (and consequently love PAD, HSP, and similar broadcasts) because WSOP only shows the big all-in confrontations and very little small ball. This move seems designed to piss off the same number of football fans.

[img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]