Yesterday, I wrote about Donovan McNabb signing on with ESPN Radio to do color analysis for NFL games and I wished him well in that endeavor. Later in the day, I was in an e-mail conversation with someone who has known Donovan McNabb since about the time he was drafted by the Eagles in 1999. I asked this person how he thought McNabb would be in a radio booth given his performance as a studio analyst. Here was his assessment:
“I think he will be better in the booth. In studio, he tried too hard to be polished and ‘TV-ish’. He tended to overstate and too often went for the big sound bite which usually fell flat. A live game will force him to be more spontaneous and stick to talking X’s and O’s which he should do pretty well. He is no dope. He studied communications at Syracuse and prepared for a post-NFL career in TV.”
I certainly agree that Donovan McNabb is no dope. I guess I never interpreted his studio performance as going “for the big sound bite”; but if that is a correct assessment, I agree that doing, color analysis for a live game will relieve him of that temptation. I suspect that ESPN Radio will try to put him on a few Eagles’ games early in the season since McNabb was a teammate/understudy to new Eagles’ coach, Doug Pederson. Just that connection could provide him with a few opportunities for insights that will get him headed in a positive direction.
A couple of days ago, I mentioned that the cancellation of the NFL Hall of Fame Game – an extra meaningless EXHIBITION GAME no less – was a blessing for all of us. Loads of people on the Internet and in the “Twitterverse” do not feel that way and have declared this a disgrace of major proportion. I understand that people spent good money to buy tix for a game that never happened and that some folks traveled – and therefore incurred expenses – to go to the induction ceremonies and to see that game. I appreciate that those folks might be upset or even slightly angry about this turn of events. But let us maintain perspective here…
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The Hall of Fame Game is an EXHIBITION GAME and it means NOTHING.
If the teams scheduled to play this game held a scrimmage at one of the two training camps, it would have as much impact on the world as would this EXHIBITION GAME.
Players should not risk their health/careers playing an EXHIBITION GAME on a field that is unsafe.
The Hall of Fame Game came under criticism last year because the playing field was substandard and Steelers’ kicker tore his ACL on that field. This year, the league “imported” a playing surface from the Superdome in New Orleans. That fact alone tells me that the NFL and the NFLPA – who inspected the field prior to the application of the paint job – knew that there were problems with this field. The powers that be chose to try to “fix” the problem from last year but did not get it right. Perhaps they might consider one of these two options:
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1. Forget having an EXHIBITION GAME associated with the Hall of Fame induction. Those ceremonies pay tribute to the greatest players in the game; if there is to be a game associated with those ceremonies, at least it should be a real game that means something somewhere in the known universe.
2. If the NFL and the NFLPA must associate an EXHIBITION GAME with the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, do not put NFL players on a glorified high school field. There is an NFL quality field about 60 miles north of Canton, Ohio in Cleveland and another one about 225 miles southwest of Canton, Ohio in Cincinnati.
Meanwhile, the outraged folks need to adjust their medications on this topic. This is not an omen portending the downfall of Western Civilization. This is merely a demonstration that the NFL is playing one more EXHIBITION GAME over and above the 64 other ones – and that number is too many to begin with – just to put their product on TV as early as possible. That is all it is and nothing more.
The NY Yankees will finish a three-game series in Boston against the Red Sox tonight. Assuming that Alex Rodriguez is in the lineup, this will be his final game in Fenway Park since A-Rod is supposed to leave the team tomorrow and head off into the sunset. One of the great understatements of the month would be to say that A-Rod is not very popular in Boston. In fact, according to the NY Business Journal, Red Sox fans have been paying elevated prices on the ticket resale market just to go to Fenway for this series to express their displeasure with Alex Rodriguez. Consider:
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Back in April/May this year, the median price on the resale market for a Yankees/Red Sox game was $99. The range of prices was $78 to $117. Yes, I know that it can be cold in Boston at night in April – and even May – but in that series, there was not the attraction of “last opportunity to boo A-Rod” in the offing.
This week, the median price for a resale ticket yesterday and tonight for the Yankees/Red Sox is $132 for last night and $159 for tonight. I really do not think that there are any other circumstances that would explain a 30-60% rise in the median price for a ticket to these games.
Here is a comment from Gregg Drinnan in his Keeping Score blog:
“Pre-Games headline at SportsPickle.com: Line already growing for Olympic Village’s working toilet.”
Finally, here is another Olympics-related comment from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:
“Sure sign you haven’t been paying close enough attention to the Olympic Games: You think Zika is Brazil’s latest soccer star.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………