Football

I love football. Well, I generally do. This season, both for my hometown college team and for my choice of professional teams was not so hot (a combined...7-21, most of which was the painful 2-14 of the 49ers). I find myself watching the NFL pregame show for the Packers - Vikings game today.

I am always struck by how much... utter nonsense I hear being spoken. I once heard a saying - "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." While that may be true on some levels, I discount it for the most part, knowing many teachers personally and knowing I may get slapped if I make that assertion. But it may be more true that "those who can't get cushy jobs talking about it." Here we watch a bunch of "experts" pontificating to almost painful lengths on these games.
I value commentators for helping to make a game understandable to those who do not know it as much as I. But in an effort to squeeze more commercials into a block of time, the "pregame shows" grow to unimaginable lengths, and the useful content to airtime ratio gets frighteningly small. I watched the FOX pregame analysts talk about a small issue from a lost game a week ago - Randy Moss dared to leave the field with 2 seconds left to go. Yes, it was an unsportsmanlike thing to do. But was the offense so grievous that we needed fifteen minutes to talk about it? I think not.

Really, I like pregame commentary to do two things: talk about the team and/or players I want to see to well, and laying out some key matchups in the game. In game, I want to know what the penalties are when they are called and hear interesting statistics as they are compiled. I have heard commentators so wrapped up in their irrelevant talking points that they ignore the 15-yard penalty that just crippled the offensive drive in progress on the field.

Can't they just read my mind and deliver exactly what I want?

Well, maybe yielding the innermost thought in my head just to get better TV is going a bit far.

Then again...