The New York Times TV critic PWNED Bryant Gumbel

The headline

"Gumbel Is Precisely the Problem for the NFL Network"

It only gets worse....
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/sports/31sandomir.html?em&ex=1199422800&en=7f7b1320835eb615&ei=5087%0A

 

Never liked Gumbel...

But I despise the term PWNED even more.

 

Just means that Richard Sandomir posts here.
I swear I've read a large chunk of that column in a post by [name redacted].

 

Steve Czaban
December 06, 2007
Great Football Play-By-Play: Harder Than It Looks

Tonight, Bryant Gumbel invades my television. Nobody asked him to. At least not real football fans who have been loathing his inept play-by-play on NFL Network games.

No, Bryant was forced upon us by some Madison Avenue marketing pinhead who probably thought that the NFL Network needed a “marquee name” in the booth to help launch its coverage of the league.

What a fiasco.

Bryant can no more call an NFL game properly on television, than Paris Hilton could rope a calf and eat it one sitting.

He’s so sorely out of his element, it’s actually been a lesson for fans in how hard the art of play-by-play really is.

Last Saturday, I practically weeped at the final games called this season in college by Verne Lundquist on CBS and Brent Musberger on ABC. Both men are the epitome of excellent play-by-play voices.

Their booming and assured tones, punctuate the big plays in a game, and let you ride the roller coaster along with them. They know the teams, the players, the rules, and the latest on both coaches.

They let their color men do their thing, while adding intelligent points about the game themselves where appropriate and when time permits.

In short, Brent and Vern have been a pure joy to listen to this year. Bryant is like being forced to listen to an accountant read names from a phone book.

In short, here’s what Bryant Gumbel does not do properly while calling a game.

1. His voice is so thin and weak it often gets lost amid the game mix of crowd noise, effects, and the comments by his analyst Cris Collinsworth.

2. His play calls are late, and often confused. You can almost here him squinting when trying to blurt out who a ball carrier was, even as the pile is picking itself up off the ground and returning to the huddle.

3. He uses an annoying, detatched, 3rd person kind of wording: “It appears that…” and “They say it’s going to be 4th down…”

4. He labors to get through simple promotional reads by the network coming in and out of breaks. Get rid of them, or let Collinsworth do the legwork.

5. He doesn’t understand the game. At one point last week, on an obvious pass interference call, Bryant speculated that “maybe the flag is for something else.” Um, Bryant, the flag was 40 yards downfield where only two players were trying to catch a pass. That’s not for offsides.

6. He makes basic gaffes like calling the Cowboys the “Packers” and then calling the Packers the “Cowboys.” This confuses and annoys the viewer.

I’ll cut the list short here, if only because the NFL Network itself is so amateurish in its game presentation. I know that most good TV producing talent is already working for Fox, CBS, and NBC. But my god, go steal some guys. Watch THEIR games. Mimic what they do! It’s complicated and difficult, but it’s not like putting a man on the moon.

To think that the WORST telecast in the NFL, is actually the most expensive for the typical fan, is especially galling. You want $5.95 per month for the sports tier that carries NFL Network?

How ‘bout I throw another $1.99 on top of that, and you can buy out Bryant’s contract, and call somebody decent like Brad Nessler?

 

I heard Gumbel do a game a couple weeks ago and not only does he sound bored and half asleep, he drug Cris Collinsworth down with him. He's really awful.

 

I agree. This isn't text messaging.

 

On Thanksgiving night, their first broadcast of the season, for the Colts at Falcons game, not five minutes into the telecast he made a major blunder. As the Colts were running out of the tunnel, he exclaimed with great conviction: "AND HERE COME THE PATRIOTS ... uh, Colts."

 

For me, nothing tops his comment during a Cowboys game earlier in the season when he said as they were going to a commercial, "We hope to get a word with Rick Romo when we come back."

 

Last year he farted on air. Or burped, one of the two. It was audible.

 

I agree that Gumbel's pretty lousy at play-by-play -- I particularly enjoyed it a couple of weeks ago when he kept referring to Frank Gore as Al Gore -- but some of Sandomir's criticisms from the Giants-Pats game are serious nitpicks. He writes that Gumbel said the kick returner had "one man to beat" but didn't say who that man was. What's so unusual about that? He criticizes Gumbel because when the Pats went up 38-28, he said they were up by "two scores." Again, not unusual and not inaccurate. I don't know if he was padding to meet a desired length or something, but he mixed in his valid points with some real stretches.

 

Agreed, broadway joe. Gumbel sucks ass, there's no doubt about that, but several of those examples were way too picky.

 

Actually, he was excoriated by the NYT critic.