Letters to the Editor
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The great anathema...
Kornheiser is perhaps the very worst sports broadcaster to ever be foisted on the viewing public. He is unbelievably unfunny... almost to the point of being funny, but unfortunately, remains an annoying drone dedicated to finding new levels of banality in his endless and pointless chatter.
I never thought that I would find somebody less funny then the Nazi comedian Dennis Miller. But, Kornheiser has surpassed that ultra conservative's witless blather.
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I love "Jaws!"
I have to agree with you King. Jaws is great. I swear, every football game I watch I end up screaming at the announcing team to shut up and tell me what what is going on, Madden and Michaels are extremely bad about that, but Jaws explained everything and I like the interplay between Jaws and Kornheiser. Now, if we could get rid of Tirico I would be truly happy.
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Bone-crush football
Apologies for being a little off topic here, but the big news in western NY is the traumatic spine injury to Kevin Everett of the Bills. He will very likely never walk again. In the same game, two other Bills players broke bones -- one ankle, one forearm.
I realize that the experience of one team in one week is not necessarily representative. And since I'm just a casual fan (you really can't avoid knowing what is going on with the Bills if you live here...), I don't know what is going on with the whole league. But this week shocked me quite a bit. It seems like a lot of what is sold by the NFL is the macho "bone crush" football image. But what percentage of players survive in the NFL for more than a few years? How many are leaving with major, debilitating injuries?
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Another one who loves Jaws
Gotta to admit that when Jaws mentioned the positioning of the DBs and the likelyhood of a Blitz coming from it I was surprised. Its pretty rare that somebody takes time to explain some of the small intricacies of the game. I am so used to lousy commentating that I now more than often mute the TV when I watch football. Won't be doing that on Monday night although I could do without TK.
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Why can't I just mute Kornheiser?
Of course I agree that Jaworski is an immeasurably large improvement over Theisman. But with Theisman and Kornheiser (and the cipher Tirico), I could mute. Now, to hear Jaworski I have to put up with Kornheiser's idiocy. It is beyond belief to me that this clown actually has a job. And the very last thing I EVER want to hear a commentator talk about is his fantasy football team, which I have to hear Kornheiser talk about every darned week.
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Kornheiser unbearable
Kornheiser is so bad, I couldn't listen to much of this thing. He and Jaws had moments of exuberant yelping that sent me diving for the mute button. Trying to emulate Cosell and Dandy has ruined football announcing. Stick with a two-man booth, and let a few seconds pass, now and then, that aren't filled with someone yapping, fer chrissakes.
Best announced game ever: Jets-Dolphins, circa December 1982, broadcast with graphics, crowd noise, and NO announcers. If they offered games like that on PPV, I'd pay.
biogirl: Everett is the big story in Denver, as well. Here is a good reflection on the "game of inches": http://tinyurl.com/23tcpn
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Fianlly
...we can steer the conversation away from Tim McCarver...Oh wait...it's almost "Actober"....
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Cheating
This isn't a "How come you haven't talked about this" letter, I'm just interested in your opinion King, should you care to give it. What do you, or other letter writers think about the allegations of the Patriots regularly cheating over at least the last year, maybe longer? If proven, they could face a forfeit of their first game, lost draft picks and face fines. Personally I'd like to see all of these happen if it is true: punative fines as punishment, forfeit the game to the Jets as compensation and lose draft picks to the Packers, Lions and others that they've pulled this on in previous years. Godell says he'll make a decision quickly and that all these punishments are possible.
I think if true, and it certainly seems to be, this taints all their wins since Bellechick came to NE, including the Superbowls.
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Jaws is the best....
I grew up rooting for "the Polish Rifle" when he played QB for my Eagles and now I get to hear him on Monday nights. It's almost enought to interest me in football before the baseball season ends.
Seriously - I have always loved Jaworski as an analyst. When he worked the Sunday pregame show for ESPN years ago, he would break down film in a way that was highly technical but easy to understand and I always wondered "why doesn't anyone else do that?" I mean, it's not like there are no other former QBs doing television. And breaking down film this way, "reading the defense" at the line and reacting as the play unfolds is what being an NFL QB is all about. I guess the network TV heads thought it would be beyond the comprehension of the huddled masses. The reality is that it made me understand the game as never before and gave me a great appreciation for what a QB really has to do to be an effective NFL player.
Now Jaws is bringing his skills to the booth and we'll all be better for it. I just hope he doesn't catch a case of Tim McCarver disease and begin to believe his own clippings...
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Lynx
If you think that the Patriots are the only ones doing this, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Seriously, if they are found guilty they won't forfeit anything and it taints nothing. They are doing what all NFL teams do - and all professional sports teams, for that matter - trying to get as much info on their competitors as possible. By any means necessary.
Now - I have no idea if they were doing exactly this on Sunday and I don't really care. And I'm definately not saying I approve. I'm just saying that this is the reality. If you don't think your Jets are doing the same thing, you're sadly mistaken. They're just not as good at it as the Pats. But more importantly, they're just not as good at playing football as the Pats.
This last point is really the key - even if they did steal signals, it didn't have any impact on the game. The Pats defense didn't overwhelm the Jets offensive line because they knew what defenses the Jets were calling - they did this because the Jets line is bad. And Randy Moss didn't run through triple coverage for a 55 yard TD pass because they knew what the Jets were doing, he did that because the Jets secondary sucks. (Ask yourself: if they knew what the Jets were doing, would they have thrown into triple coverage? hello?)
I know that no NY team can lose because they're bad, but we are talking about the Jets here. They have been bad since ... well ... since 1969. (Unless you count the years when Belichick was working for them. They didn't suck then.) They are so mismangaged that Disney is thinking of buying them, because no franchise screams "Mickey Mouse" more than the Jets. So get over your sour grapes, move out of your parent's basement and stop crying.