ESPN's Bad Night

Felt it was worth it's own thread. What a horrible draft night for ESPN. For the company that pioneered televised draft it was a precipitous drop off.

Most of night was unintended comedy.

For almost every pick it seemed like the ESPN team was the last to know.

 

Now the the NFL has its own channel ESPN has been shut out of the Green Room, on-stage interviews and good guests to fill the down time.

That means they have to rely more and more on Berman & Co. at the desk and that is a recipe for utter failure and unintentional hilarity.

 

To me, anyway, it wasn't that they were struggling to fill the down time. They just didn't have any control over their personalities. Kiper didn't talk nearly enough. Young talked way too much. People kept trying to talk over each other. When people disagreed, like Gruden and Kiper clearly did a few times, especially about Wilson, no one was in control to say -- OK you give us your take, Gruden, then you give us your take, Kiper. As a result, it looked like armature hour. It was an orchestra without a conductor.

 

These guys have been talking over each other since they went to a five-man set.

Nobody used to get under Kiper's skin quite like Theismann. Those were halcyon days compared to this.

 

Dr. Z was the best.

 

Liked when they went to Ed Werder to talk about the Dallas Dez Bryant pick and he talked about the Broncos. The look on Berman's face was classic. Berman mumbled something like Ed we went to you because of your Cowboy knowledge.

 

Line of the night: Erin Andrews to Jimmy Clausen "How are you holding up?"


Unfuckingbelievable... it's not like a family member died, airhead....

 

Yeah, it was horrendous.

I flipped over to NFL Network and was pleased with the coverage.

 

Berman's supposed to be the traffic cop.

And what was up with that audio mix? They had the ambient noise dialed up to 11.

NFL Network sounded fine.

 

I watched a segment near the last pick of the first round where Tom Jackson and Steve Young literally talked at the same time for nearly 20 seconds each. Neither could decide who was in control, so they kept talking. The camera went to Young, then to Jackson, the panned out. Jackson started pointing and yelling louder so Young started motioning his hands like he was trying to burn as many calories as possible.

At one point Gruden chimmed in so we had three people talking at once. It sounded like when you are playing music, and forget you have a YouTube clip on in the background - you know two things are going on but can't tell what the hell either of them are.

Meanwhile, Mel Kiper, draft guru, is over on the far left face down looking at the desk. Not reading, not studying stats, just looking blankly at the desk. A few seconds later, his head is in his hands just kind of zoning out like he's not on TV or anything.

Not sure what the hell Berman was doing at that point, probably thinking up nicknames for Jahvid Best.

 

It looked like Tom Jackson was about to go Brittney Griner on someone's ass.

 

Kiper is their meal ticket on this. If you sent him over to NFL and they dropped their "Kiper" ESPN might as well televise the WNBA.

Kiper is damn good and what he does. ESPN has forgotten this.