In spite of what the Sports Emmys reward, sensational endings don’t make great telecasts. Except sometimes.
Years ago, when football fans tuning to big games could logically expect to see and hear what they saw last night — except not in High Def or surround sound — we’d see all the time: Clean, full-screen telecasts; the maximum view of what we’d been urged to watch, no verbal incontinence, thus little to annoy, lots to enjoy.
For starters — and finishers — last night, FOX’s Joe Buck won big by not trying to be the big winner; he didn’t try to overwhelm the broadcast, stamp his mark. He didn’t try to out-slick his audience, which, unfortunately — but understandably — he’d conditioned to expect.
In fact, Buck even took it easy not to lean on one of his usual but unsteady crutches: Stats, specifically those that have zip to do with the game at hand. He just called the game, became its servant, not its master — and he won the night by finishing second to a game he could not surpass.
Next, the view stayed big — good, smart. Football, even when not in Super Bowl overtime, sure looks a lot better when not squeezed by scrolling fantasy league data, network promos and the latest news from the Bundesliga on FC Dortmund’s new manager.
In another TV throwback, FOX minimized the usual appearance of needless, misleading, inapplicable and, forgive me, imbecilic, stat graphics. Heck, during the Falcons’ first two TD drives we didn’t see or hear a word about the Red Zone nor its existence tethered to statistical stupidity.
It took until late in the first half before the first stupid stat intruded. With the Pats near Atlanta’s end zone, Troy Aikman had to say the Falcons were the worst in the NFL at preventing Red Zone TDs. Atlanta then shoved the Pats backwards before they kicked a field goal.
The pictures, enhanced by an uncluttered screen, answered most questions. The best replay appeared in the first quarter — an isolate of Atlanta’s 6-foot-1, 300-pound DT Grady Jarrett, starting from his right, entering the backfield from his left, then doing a ring-around-Tom-Brady until finally sacking him.
As usual, all replays of Julio Jones were riveting.
The only thing that bothered this viewer was the repetitive commercial reminders that coming-soon movies and TV shows will be excessively creepy, as well as standardly bloody and violent.
But overall, good, less-is-more TV, unexpectedly good, radically good given all we’ve grown to expect from any and all NFL telecasts. And maybe FOX was rewarded with the Super Bowl’s first OT, or “Free football!” as Michael Kay might say. Even Lady Gaga, as Mary Martin as Peter Pan, was entertaining — without misbehavin’. Great stuff.
If you ever feel the need to measure or even abandon your common sense, spend a weekend watching college basketball.
We’ll start slowly.
On ESPN, Virginia led Syracuse by 12 when SU started the second half by hitting a bombs-away 3-pointer with one second left on the shot clock. Play-by-player Tom Hart then sent it to sideline reporter Kaylee Hartung, asking “what kind of halftime adjustments did Syracuse make?”
“Tom, you just saw it in that first possession — patience.”
Patience? We saw strong UVa defense leading to SU’s desperation 3. Had SU shown any more patience it would have lost the ball to the shot-clock buzzer.
Anyway, in the next, oh, 10 minutes, Syracuse patiently slammed it into overdrive, running and gunning to take the lead, win the game.
Next, FOX demonstrated its full understanding of basketball in its open to Xavier-Creighton. Among the 17 video clips of “basketball” shown, eight were of slam dunks, five were of 3-point bombs, three were of players showboating — all set to pounding background music and the familiar sound of Gus Johnson screaming his head off.
And so FOX continues to travel its obvious course of trying to duplicate everything that for years has made ESPN insufferable to genuine sports fans of all ages. Perhaps FOX can reprise “He Got Jacked Up!”
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Premature court-stormers make thrilling win an unthinkable loss 0:0 SAINT BONAVENTURE — Mo Alie-Cox scored 20 points, JeQuan Lewis… Later, on CBSSN, St. Bonaventure hit a 3-point shot to take a one-point lead with half-a-second left.
But these are the days of mug-for-the-TV-cameras and obligatory audience participation, thus Bonnies fans stormed the court, bringing with them jurisdictional confusion and chaos, which yesterday the Atlantic 10 Conference remarkably blamed on the game’s referees after first fully supporting them.
Regardless, with the court cleared, SBU was hit with a home-crowd technical, VCU made the free throw then won in overtime.
On Sunday, for some odd reason, CBS again chose to distract its audience by having a live basketball game — this one appeared to be Indiana-Wisconsin — played in the background while it flashed graphics carrying its usual must-read statistics of no known value or relevance.
Nurse!
Starting to think that Tiger Woods isn’t exactly a “share-a-foxhole-with” sort — unless he and Team Tiger were selling Tiger Woods-signature foxholes.
Friday, after shooting 5-over in Dubai — a regular stop for him as per roughly $1 million in appearance fees, yeah, just to show up — he claimed that he felt fine, but just played poorly.
And then the next day, before Round 2, he withdrew — what’s commonly known as “quitting.”
While we’re not supposed to notice — at least according to those who report golf on the PGA’s partner TV networks — is that Woods often withdraws when he’s far behind, never when he’s in the lead or in the hunt.
Again, we’re not supposed to notice what we can’t possibly miss or ignore.
Well, we finally came up with an answer to the NFC Championship question submitted by reader Eddie O. of Dobbs Ferry.
In the opening kick to Packers-Falcons a Green Bay player stayed on the field, injured, as the Falcon offense and Packer defense ran onto the field.
“Why,” asks Eddie O., “did water boys from both teams immediately run on to the field to squirt water into the players’ mouth.” The players, after all hadn’t yet played even one play.
First, Eddie, they’re not water boys. And they don’t like to be called “Squirts,” either. They’re members of the LTPPU, the liquid treatment personnel protocol union, and they’re just meeting the terms as per the ratification of their latest collective bargaining agreement.
Another nice job by Seton Hall basketball on behalf of its student-athlete, full-scholarship recruits! Herb Pope, 6-foot-8 SHU forward, 2008-2012, Thursday in Pennsylvania pleaded guilty to armed bank robbery. At SHU he majored in social science behavior.
This just in: Statistical context provided on ESPN! Really! Play-by-play man Bob Wischusen at halftime of Saturday’s Iowa St.-Kansas, noted that ISU had only three rebounds — but then explained that KU didn’t allow many opportunities, having shot 70 percent.
So there’s the U.S. men’s soccer team, Friday night on FS1, in a friendly versus Jamaica. U.S. wore its traditional maroon, blue and mostly black Nike uniforms. Jamaican team wore its country’s colors.
Reader Tom Lalli, Newport, R.I., suggests that another way to increase the pace of games — removed by those who know what’s best for us and basketball — is to eliminate the time-wasting new-age ritual of all five players slapping hands after one makes or misses a first-of-two (or three) free throw. Yep, that’s a habit that has outlived the usefulness it never had.
Didn’t matter that Baylor’s school colors are green and yellow or that the school’s athletic department, after two BU football players’ convictions for rape, is now suspected of recruiting 31 student-athletes who committed 52 rapes over four years, Baylor still showed up to play basketball at Kansas and on ESPN2, Wednesday, dressed in its “we-bad black” Nike uniforms.
Reader Steve Arendash notes that Mike Francesa’s non-televised shows from the Super Bowl, last week, were repeatedly interrupted — by Francesa, returning the good wishes of those he knows as they passed by. “Was that to show us peons how many people he knows?” Steve, I’d lay even-money that he was swapping hellos with people who weren’t even there.
For those who missed it, the otherwise epic Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal Australian Open final ended after a delay to examine a TV replay monitor.
New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office last week accused Time-Warner Cable of false advertising. Reminds us of when T-W didn’t clear the NFL Network, insisting that no one wanted it. When it added NFLN, it sold it as “We finally have what you’ve been waiting for!”
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