It stands to reason that Jason Witten, likely reading the writing on the Teleprompter, saw a better future in his past than in his future.
It wasn’t working. It had little chance from the start. Tony Romo is a 100-1 shot. Witten was hopelessly, blindly and foolishly cast, on nothing better than a wish, as the rookie lead analyst on ESPN’s “Monday Night Football.”
Those telecasts have become so saturated in mindless verbal and video excesses and thoughtless technological clutter that they became dares to viewers’ intellects. We became lab rats, tested to gauge our ability to withstand prolonged torture.
And, the freshly retired star Cowboys tight end, having decided to return to the field — as if he left ESPN in tears — only fed the folly with excited, needless run-on speeches after virtually every play. If ESPN tried to save him from himself, it didn’t take.
He may have been disposed toward ceaseless talking from watching sports on TV, as did third-voice interruption/annoyance specialist — just following orders — Booger McFarland, who rolled back and forth in a sideline contraption whose cost in creation, shipping and maintenance surely was equal to the pay of several credible ESPN staffers laid off to save money.
This from a noted sportscaster: “Our TV technology is great, but overused. There are too many replays. It slows down the flow of the game.
“And there’s way too much opinion. When an announcer tells you something you didn’t see the first time, that’s fantastic. But viewers always say to me, ‘I don’t need to be told everything.’
“There are so many sports shows and jobs today with people on them with no talent. Most haven’t done the apprenticeship needed to learn the craft.”
That was from the late Chris Schenkel … in 1998.
Under the leadership of TV execs eager to add any gizmo and “name” presence, that condition has worsened. And there’s no reason why the bad ideas won’t continue.
We’ll write it again: In TV, there is no idea so bad to be unworthy of duplication and perpetuation. Score the basketball. And what ESPN, at great expense of time and effort as opposed to well-spent forethought, has done to “Monday Night Football” was as predictably preposterous as it was preventable.
Next!
Look to bullpen use for pace-of-play relief
MLB continues to try to remediate a crisis — the snail’s pace of play — by whipping the snail. Proposed pitch clocks, automatic bases on balls and such, ain’t gonna do it.
What, after all, is the primary reason for games that used to run 2:30 now running 3:30? What, over the past, oh, 20 years, changed?
Well, you can see it in most boxscores. Games that once included four, five, six pitchers, now regularly include 13,14, 15.
The remedy lies not in artificial additives but in changing managerial and front-office philosophies that are no more practical than a sustained feckless fad.
The rush to believe every team must reach its Mariano Rivera-like closer — even if the closer loses his title to ineffectiveness — has made farce of The Game, as managers and spread-sheeted analysts have taken it even further by having designated-inning relievers, starting in the sixth.
So what does a manager do when his seventh-inning reliever makes one, two, three? He pulls him for the pitcher he has scripted to throw the eighth. And if that guy isn’t nearly as good — how could he improve on perfect? — he might be pulled, if it isn’t too late.
That makes no sense — especially from managers who knew that you don’t throw in a winning hand when they played — but here we are and have been for too long.
The manager wants to use his seventh-inning man again, tomorrow? How does he know he’ll be needed? Why not win this game first, then let your eighth-inning man handle the seventh and eighth — and perhaps even the ninth — tomorrow? Why not manage based on here-and-now circumstances to win the game rather than prefabricated 162-game fantasies?
Fernando Rodney has been a career closer, for 11 teams. How does such a “specialist” become special if he’s that expendable? How many times was he brought in to replace a pitcher who’d just pitched a strong eighth? How is it that Rodney, who has never started a game, has a career record of 48-66? How? Institutionalized insanity.
The incomplete rationale, “The game has changed” must be reversed. Maddening, crapshoot bullpen formulas must cease. All other remedies to improve the pace become placebos, whipping the snail in hope of making it fractionally faster.
We know that accepting less TV money to reduce commercial time between half-innings previously was out of the question, until recent considerations — about 40 years too late. So the only other thing left is to replace bullpen bingo with common, applicable sense.
As Ron Darling has said on many days and in many ways: The starters are paid all the big bucks while a bunch of relievers are expected to win the games — even if takes all day and night.
Bryce bat-Phlip Phun on the way
So what happens the first time the Phillies’ Bryce Harper poses a home run into a single, perhaps even with an immodest bat-flip?
Does he receive a commendation from Rob Manfred who claims that such “fun” demonstrations are good for the game, especially in attracting kids?
ESPN’s baseball crew is getting loose, testing the controls on the Launch Angle and Exit Velocity meters, loading data into the Probability of Catch device.
Adam “Pacman” Jones arrested? Gee, the last guy you’d expect.
The scouting report on new Met Robinson Cano logically should read, “Surrenders without a fight. Infielders should not hurry throws to first, even if they initially bobble the ball.”
No one is more deserving of continued success than Fox’s Kevin Burkhardt — the former N.J. car salesman who paid his dues, is a strong, honest listen and remains humble. There goes my deal on that 2008 Impala.
The abuse aimed at John Tavares by too many Islanders “fans” Thursday was seen and heard as vulgar and visceral — genuine outrage and disturbing, world-gone-nuts hate.
Who suffered more media shame? Matt Kuchar for shorting his caddy, or Tiger Woods for being busted at the wheel while whacked on opioids?
True or False: WFAN this afternoon will air the recording of Mike Francesa in 2014 touting out-of-work-again Johnny Manziel as “the next Drew Brees.”