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!)

Artie Lange Takes Great Pleasure In Humiliating Joe Buck And Ruining His "Great Show" (UPDATED WITH BETTER, LONGER VIDEO AND OT SEGMENT)

Yes, I did see thw whole first episode of Joe Buck Live, and I must say, I was not overly impressed. Nothing big came out of the Favre interview, Joe Buck somehow got out of having a hugh argument with Chad Johnson Ochocinco, and I felt that some of his humor fell flat. And keep in mind, I generally enjoy Joe Buck's dry sense of humor. But the highlight of the night was by a mile Artie Lange completely owning Joe Buck, Tony Romo, and Jessica Simpson all in less than 2 minutes of epic hilarity, with the best part being after Joe "The Bachelor Is Better Than Baseball" Buck saying that TMZ is his favorite website, Lange suggests that his 2nd favorite website must therefore be "suckingcock.com". (as you have probably figured out, this video is quite NSFW as you can pretty much say whatever the fuck you want on HBO. And Artie Lange knows that.)





And while I don't know about elsewhere, but everyone in Philadelphia (or at least in my family) caught on to the whole Tony Homo joke years ago. Nevertheless, that was hilarious. And kudos to Buck as well for handling all of that with tremendous aplomb. Especially in the Overtime segment where Lange got carried on and on. And more kudos to Buck for fighting back. I think this might be the first time that I ever felt sorry for the guy.

And one last thing not necessarily related to Lange but to Joe Buck Live in general, if I had a nickel for everytime Buck said how "great" a show it was going to be in the first 8 or so minutes, I think I would be a millionaire. Oh, and the ironic part was how at the end of the show, he went on about how announcers should not use the word "amazing" to describe every play in sports. And Joe, what's not amazing about Kobayashi eating 100 hot dogs?

Your first episode of "Joe Buck Live" in ten minutes or less (Awful Announcing)
Joe Buck Live Overtime gets even more uncomfortable (Awful Announcing)

Will The Real John Mayberry, Sr. Please Stand Up? (UPDATED WITH BETTER VIDEO!)

Aside from the fact that I utterly refuse to talk about Brad Lidge's 9th inning choke job that allowed the Yankees to win 5-4 in the bottom of the 9th, I have to share this video with you. The Phillies brought up John Mayberry, Jr. from the minor leagues and in his 2nd major league at bat, he hit a home run in Yankee Stadium. So naturally, seeing as his dad was a former major leaguer, Fox was eager to catch dear old Dad's reaction to his son's first homer. Perhaps they may have been too overeager, seeing as the person they thought was John Mayberr, Sr., wasn't exactly John Mayberry, Sr......(the payoff is a lot sooner in this version and not only is it better quality, but you get a lot more of the awkwardness afterwards which just absolutely killed me)



Oh.....my.....God! I was literally in tears cracking up at that! So, so funny! They had the wrong John Mayberry! And they showed this guy over and over again for a long time afterward as well! It was not a right away instant correction, this went on for what had to have been 20-25 minutes real time before Buck came on and said "Yeah, we got the wrong person".

Fox was not completely off here, the real John Mayberry, Sr. was in attendance at that game and he was eventually interviewed by Ken Rosenthal. And keeping with the theme of the comedy graphics over the situation, when they started the interview, the graphic read "The Real John Mayberry, Sr. We promise". Too funny!