Fixing Football Night In America

Another season of FNIA is over and once again they fail to remotely touch upon the greatness that NFL Primetime had.

However, while nothing will ever be better than the original NFL Primetime with Chris Berman and Tom Jackson, there are ways that I think NBC can fix it so that it can at least be worthy pf being mentioned in the same sentence.

First things, first, NFL Primetime worked because it was simple, it was not over the top, and the stars were allowed to shine. It had just 2 people, Berman and Jackson doing highlights and analysis without any gimmicks such as Bob Costas freezing his tush off in the Meadowlands (would less people watch if they had the poor guy in a heated studio or booth?) Berman was very enthusiastic and his gimmick and nicknames and what not worked on this show. His schtick doesn't work for much else, but it worked on Primetime, and Tom Jackson was terrific complement to Boomer. People like to talk about the chemistry between Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick (more on them later) and granted they do have it, but nowhere to the level that Berman and Jackson had it.

Enough of the gold standard of highlight shows and more on something that would be lucky to win plastic an award show for highlight shows. Football Night in America does not work for multiple reasons, but the biggest one is there are way too many cooks in the kitchen. Now I understand how you may want more people for a Super Bowl broadcast, but do you really need 9 people appearing regularly on a 1-hour and 20 minute highlight/pre-game show? How many people do you need to preview the Sunday Night game while doing highlights and breaking down the games of the afternoon? NFL Primetime did it with 2, at the sacrifice of talking about the Sunday Night game during the hour (who cares about that, though, isn't that what pre-game intros are for?). So who should NFL Primetime get rid of?

1. Why on earth do you have 3 anchors? Football Night in America essentially has 3 hosts in Bob Costas (now on-site), Keith Olbermann, and Dan Patrick. And the fact of the matter is that you can get rid of 2. Who on earth cares if Bob Costas is even on site of the game period? What on earth does that add? Why can't Al and Cris just talk about the game in the booth, if they must talk about the game during that hour and 20 minutes. Back to Costas, though, what on earth does he add to the show, period? Costas is not a football guy, he's a baseball guy, so why on earth is he on a football show that he does not need to be on? He does not add anything and as he proved to us the first 2 years of the show, he sucks at doing highlights. Get rid of Costas on that show and you are down to two.

NFL Primetime succeeded in only 1 person doing highlights, so why does FNIA need 2? But who to get rid of? Olbermann or Patrick? If you know me, then you know what I am going to say, but just read my reasons as I am not going to make this about his horridness and constant lying as a political host.

When Olbermann first broke into the business, he was a sports guy and a highlight reader. He got on ESPN with Dan Patrick and they both became famous. For sports. Olbermann had a falling-out at ESPN, went to Fox Sports, had a falling out there, and eventually decided to get in the political TV business. Back then he was a sports guy doing politics. Now, enough time has passed where America no longer views him as that witty SportsCenter anchor, but rather as that left-wing political humorist on MSNBC. In other words, on Football Night in America, he is a politics guy doing sports. Would Katie Couric ever host the NFL Today? Then why on earth is Olbermann on FNIA? Well the only reason NBC ever brought him in the first place was to help promote his MSNBC political show Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Back then, his show was on the ratings rise and with his constant speaking out against the unpopular Bush Administartion, was gaining in popularity. They decided to bring him, and as a direct promotion for the show, they have him name every week "The Worst Person In The NFL" which may have been the least subtle, most horribly conceived, unfunny promotion that anyone has ever thought of for Countdown. I have not seen the numbers on this but I would be shocked if it had worked.

NBC had enough sense after 8 weeks to ditch it for good but Olbermann still remained on the show, spouting off the same tired old jokes every Sunday, and making obscure references that only people who watch his show would get and using words that only .1% of the population knows. And all he does is read highlights! He does not engage anyone in any discussions and I am not so sure he truly knows what he is talking about when it comes to football.

Let's face it, Olbermann does not speak to the average football fan. The obnoxious way which he said during last Sunday's FNIA that if he knew the schedule that he would tell us, was so obnoxious that obnoxious does not begin to describe how obnoxious it is. He thinks he is better and smarter than everyone when in fact everyone out there watching him sees him as either a horribly misguided political host or a pathological political liar. You see the common theme here? He is no longer a sports guy and is no longer considered as such. He's all politics all the time, going as far as to make Sarah Palin-Alaska jokes and making statements that at it's most literal, say the person is literally crushed in a bag. So why on earth is he on a sports show? His ratings are so far down that there is little hope for recovery for them and putting him on a sports show in an effort to help the ratings is only taking up a lot of space and time.

Now on to Dan Patrick. Dan Patrick does engage in conversations with the analysts on the show, he is charismatic enough like Berman to host a show and read highlights without being overly obnoxious like Olbermann is. Sure he is not perfect nor is he as good as Boomer, but he is the only one there that can carry a highlights show without putting everyone to sleep (Costas) or alienating his entire viewers with obnoxiousness (Olbermann).

2. Get rid of Peter King. What does he tell us that is not available on Pro Football Talk?

3. Get rid of Tiki Barber. His 30-second reports from New York or Dallas are about the most useless thing to hit sports since Fox's Glow Puck.

4. Fixing the analysts. You need someone who is both knowledgeable about football and has a personality to serve as a single analyst to the highlights. That's the best way this kind of thing works. Sadly for NBC, Tom Jackon has both and is the best at it. Sadder for NBC, no one else on their roster has that kind of combination. I'd say Cris Collinsworth, but NBC clearly sees him as the next John Madden or at the very least as a game-analyst, and not a studio analyst. I will assume that Cris chooses to remain in that position and will not go back to the studio, otherwise I would advocate for him to take the spot of Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison.

Don't get me wrong, I love Tony Dungy and he knows the sport better than anyone, but he does not have the personality needed to be a single analyst on a highlights show. And Rodney Harrison, while a little more opinionated and has more personality and charisma than Tony Dungy, is nowhere near knowledgeable enough to be like Tom Jackson. Get rid of Harrison and Dungy and find someone out there, anyone. Steal Tom Jackson or someone else from ESPN if you have to, just get someone you think can fill the roles of a Tom Jackson on Football Night in America.

5. Another thing they can do is get rid of the end of show recap of the games, once called The Little Big Show, now I could not tell you what they call it, but regardless, it's useless filler and needs to go.

Now I know what you are thinking, JFein, this is exactly like NFL Primetime! Football Night in America should be different! But, my counter to that is, Primetime sure as heck worked and what is Football Night in America now but the newer version of NFL Primetime seeing as ESPN no longer has access to the exclusive extended highlight package. They lost that to NBC when they lost Sunday Night Football to NBC.

Dan Patrick and a knowledgeable charismatic analyst like Tom Jackson. Alone. Doing highlights and analysis of a game. Now there is a show capable of surpassing NFL Primetime.