NFL Week 17 Live Blog

Happy 2012, everyone!

As much as I hate being Captain Buzzkill on one of my favorite weekends of the NFL season, this is perhaps the least excited I have ever been for a Week 17.  That the Eagles are eliminated and playing a team that is also eliminated with Ron Pitts and Charles Davis on the call may or may not have anything to do with this.

Seeing as CoveritLive has a new system and I suck at figuring it out, for the second straight week, I failed to realize someone set up a live blog before me!   Ignore my invitation, wherever you received it.  Instead, log onto coveritlive.com, go to upcoming events, and launch "KSJ NFL Week 17 Live Blog".  That is the live blog we are using.  If this message does not pertain to you,

CLICK HERE TO GO TO LIVE BLOG!

While you do that, I will make a New Year's Resolution to better learn CoverItLive's new system.  Or something.

LOL Fox Sports

What happens when you take this:

and then add this?

If you guessed possibly the worst NFL announcing trio of all time—you win! It’s too bad there aren’t Pammy awards for NFL announcers. But it should make for some very entertaining live blog moments this fall.

Thanks for nothing Fox.

Follow me on Twitter @kt1000

Meet Your 2009 BCS Announcers!

Both Fox and ABC have decided to release their BCS announcers and I must say, there are definitley some surprises. I know that I normally save posts like these for when the whole schedule is released but seeing as I have a few quips and snarky comments, I'll post them with today's official release.

Rose Bowl - January 1 (ABC, Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit)
Allstate Sugar Bowl - January 1 (Fox - Thom Brennaman and Brian Billick)
Tostitos Fiesta Bowl - January 4 (Fox - Sam Rosen and Tim Ryan)
FedEx Orange Bowl - January 5 (Fox - Dick Stockton and Charles Davis)
BCS National Championship Game - January 7 (ABC - Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit)

Fox has obviously decided to stick with their NFL pairings instead of reuniting the dreadful pairing of Brennaman and Mangina, but they may have instead created a whole new monster the likes of which this country has never seen before.

Dick Stockton is calling a BCS Game! As if he was not senile enough in an NFL booth, he is now going to be on the call of a college game, where surely the slight rule varifications will drive him to a greater depth of senility in the booth the likes of which this world has never seen before. Add to the fact that once again he is working with Charles Davis (And His Mangina) and the awfulness could reach epic heights.

That being said, isn't it sad when there is a list of 4 PbP announcers and the best one out of the 4 is Brent Musburger??? And isn't it even sadder when of the 3 Fox PbP guys, the best one is Sam Rosen? If Rosen can get a grasp of the college game, then there is a chance that he could overtake Musburger has the best PbP guy on the list. As far as analysts go, there is no doubt that Herbie will just blow all of the Fox guys away. End of story.

FOX and ABC release BCS bowl game announcers (Awful Announcing)

Please Excuse Me While I Go Shoot Myself (Your Week 1 Fox Announcing Line-Up)

First of all, big time thanks to James Craven and 49er16 for filling in for me on such a short notice.

And yes, I am aware of the Brett Favre story and if we have a contract signing and/or an offiical announcement tonight, I will get it on here ASAP. But now, on to the business at hand. I'd say thanks to Mookie and Fang's Bites, but if you're an Eagles or a Panthers fan, this is not good news. At all. As in, get ready to shoot yourself, as I have had the not so great privilege of viewing Fox's press release of their Week 1 announcing assignments, and while I could sugarcoat it and copy and paste the actual PR, I'll make this as quick and as painless as possible by just stating the games and the announcers for Week 1 of the NFL on Fox. And for all you Eagles and Panthers fans, there's been a HORRIBLE CHANGE!!!!! (all times eastern)

Philadelphia @ Carolina 1:00 (Dick Stockton and Charles Davis)
Minnesota @ Cleveland 1:00 (TBD)
Detroit @ New Orleans 1:00 (Chirs Myers and Trent Green)
Dallas @ Tampa Bay 1:00 (Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston, and Tony Siragusa)
San Francisco @ Arizona 4:15 (TBD)
Washington @ New York Giants 4:15 (Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, SR: Pam Oliver)
St. Louis @ Seattle 4:15 (Ron Pitts and John Lynch)

If your game is a TBD game, that means you are either getting Sam Rosen and Tim Ryan or Thom Brennaman and Brian Billick. Either way, I do pity you, although I think you all need to pity me a whole lot more. Trust me, I need it.

And for the depth chart junkies, here is your Fox depth chart this year starting from the top, to the You Know Your Team Sucks If This Is Your Announce Team team.

Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, and Pam Oliver
Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston, and Tony Siragusa
Dick Stockton and Charles Davis
Thom Brennaman and Brian Billick
Sam Rosen and Tim Ryan
Ron Pitts and John Lynch
Crhis Myers and Trent Green

And for all those representing the suicide hotline out there or what not, the title of that post is SARCASTIC!!!!!! Barely sarcastic, but nonetheless, I am not really about to blow my brains out. Although my toes may only have a few more minutes of attachment........

Major Changes In The Fox NFL Announcing Teams

After a long and tiring day of walking around an amusement park, I was looking forward to a nice, relaxing night of watching Eagles pre-season games and having a chat or 2 over at Awful Announcing about some of the games and the few future UFL stars that we recognized. Nothing more. Nothing less. And now, another huge story about Fox's NFL coverage has been released and to say that there are changes is quite the understatement. As we all know, Brian Baldinger and Matt Vasgersian are no longer with Fox so we knew changes would be coming, but nothing quite like this. Here are the changes courtesy of Michael Hiestand's USA Today column.

Fox's lead NFL game teams — Joe Buck/Troy Aikman and Kenny Albert/Darryl Johnston — remain intact. So does its studio show, except for weather reporter Jillian Reynolds being on maternity leave.

The changes:

Billick, who worked in two- and three-man booths last season, will this season step up — after what Goren calls "an outstanding rookie season" last year — to a full-time two-man booth with Thom Brennaman.

•Charles Davis, Fox's lead analyst on BCS games, will work NFL games with Dick Stockton. With Fox's BCS deal in its last season, Goren says, "we looked for an opportunity to keep Charles with us."

•John Lynch, the nine-time Pro Bowler who called a few Fox games after retiring last season, will work games with Ron Pitts this season.

•Trent Green, who retired in June after playing 11 NFL seasons, will call games with Chris Myers. Goren says Dick Vermeil, the ex-ABC analyst who coached Green, recently "called me out of the blue and said, 'You just made the best hire of the year.' "

•Gone from Fox's NFL games: Analysts Brian Baldinger, J.C. Pearson, Tony Boselli and play-by-play announcer Matt Vasgersian.

When it comes to TV wild card Favre, Goren says there's "no indication he's interested in starting a broadcasting career at this time."

If I recall correctly, other than the studio show, Buck/Aikman and Albert/Johnston/Siragusa, the only announce team at Fox that is in tact are the 2 doofuses that are doing the Eagles-Panthers Week 1 opener, Sam Rosen and Tim Ryan.

As far as my view on the changes, while the jury is obviously still out on Lynch and Green, I'm surprised that Fox is so high on Charles "Mangina" Davis who was noticably bad in all of his BCS games. As far as Thom Brennaman goes, while I like him calling dramatic moments in dramatic games (i.e. the Boise miracles), when there is no earth-shattering excitement going on, I find him bland and unexciting, and oh, let's not forget, his man-love for Tim Tebow. In other words, when he is not screaming his head off, Thom Brennaman is a bad announcer. And wait, Chris Myers??? I suppose that he will be the first PbP man ever to call games in the booth while simultaneously giving out reports from the sidelines. In all seriousness, though, if I recall correctly, he has done PbP before and he was actually quite bad at it. And lastly, while I do feel utterly despise Dick Stockton's announcing, Fox is not helping him at all with partners. First it's Goose and Moose, then Baldinger, and now Charles Davis (and his Mangina). Oy ve. Maybe Mike Vick will draw us so much publicity and the Eagles will be so good this year that every Fox game the Eagles get Buck/Aikman. In my view, at least, they are better than most of the other garbage that Fox seems to be putting out there this year.

(Big time hat tip to SSReporters/Mookie!)