Is Gary Danielson the best football broadcaster on the national level?
A survey of writers and editors for the Sporting News, SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily put the CBS college football analyst at the top of a 25-man list.
Rounding out the top 10: Cris Collinsworth, Al Michaels, Phil Simms, Kirk Herbstreit, Troy Aikman, Ron Franklin, Verne Lundquist, Joe Buck and Jim Nantz.
Surveys of this nature are designed to produce lively pro-and-con arguments among couch potatoes.
But this list offers more than its share of cons.
To begin with, lumping together play-by-play men with booth analysts in a single survey is like mixing Jack Daniel’s with grapefruit juice. (Yes, I tried that once. It was awful.)
Beyond this unworkable categorization, I evidently have been watching different college and NFL games than these writers and editors.
Example: ABC’s Brent Musburger, the master of the sports cliche, ranks 13th, way ahead of CBS’s venerable Dick Enberg, whose astute knowledge of the NFL, particularly the AFC, is encyclopedic. And Enberg’s play-by-play focus remains intact.
Bob Papa, the NFL Network’s play-by-play man who constantly reminds us about his employer, also ranks ahead of Enberg.
Who stuffed that ballot box?
Meanwhile, CBS’s Dan Dierdorf didn’t even make the list of 25, which includes Mike Patrick, Gus Johnson and Daryl Johnston.
Using the judges’ awkward, questionable survey, here is my top 10:
Michaels, Collinsworth, Lund- quist, Danielson, Herbstreit, Enberg, Mike Tirico, Dierdorf, Nantz and Buck.
Any agreement or argument?
Worthless interviews.
I’m on the same sports wavelength as Boris Illade, a reader I’ve never met. He shares my irritation about broadcasters, particularly local ones, who spend TV time with unimportant, senseless interviews with players.
In an e-mail, Illade detailed the following interview scenario:
TV man: “Do you think that you will beat the Lakers tomorrow?”
Player: “You know . . . we have a lot of respect for them . . . you know. We are a good team too . . . you know. But if we play good, as a team, we can beat them . . . you know.”
TV man. “Thank you. This is Bill Jones reporting live.”
While Illade’s scenario is fictional, it’s close to reality.
Routine player interviews are normally a waste of time, except, of course, in situations dealing with high drama and championship play.
Also next-to-useless: those hurried halftime “interviews.”
A perplexed football coach, whose team is down by 30 points, is trying to escape to the dressing room. A reporter thrusts a microphone in his face and asks the coach what he thinks about his team’s defense.
I’m waiting for the day that a coach, with a macabre sense of humor, looks the reporter in the eye, and answers: “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with our defense.”
Rockies memories.
FSN Rocky Mountain is offering a weekly series, “Top of the Rockies,” which examines the 2009 season.
Wednesday’s half-hour (6:30 p.m.) looks at what game producers feel are the best five games of the season. Other programs follow at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 9 and 6 p.m. Dec. 16.
Retirement file.
The NBA broadcasting career of ESPN’s Bill Walton has ended.
After missing much of last season because of severe back problems, Walton recently told executives he would not be able to fulfill his studio analyst duties.
Walton was a lightning rod in the booth, mixing his extensive game knowledge with an annoying I-know-everything demeanor. Still, Walton always enlightened halftime conversations with strong opinions.
Footnote.
The Broncos’ home game against the Giants on Thanksgiving will be aired at 6:15 p.m. on the NFL Network and simulcast on KDVR-Channel 31 (Channel 13 on cable). The NFL Network is not on Comcast’s primary cable system.
Longtime Denver journalist Dusty Saunders writes about sports media each Monday in The Denver Post. Reach him at tvtime@comcast.net.
The Simms file
CBS avoided a touchy situation Sunday and also missed an opportunity to establish a sports broadcasting first.
It was arguable which was the most important late afternoon AFC contest — Broncos-Chargers in Denver or Jets-Patriots at Foxborough, Mass.
CBS sent Phil Simms and Jim Nantz, its first NFL team, to Foxborough, a decision possibly based on that presumed huge late-afternoon Eastern Seaboard audience. Dick Enberg and Dan Fouts were in Denver.
If Simms had been here, he would have had to analyze the ineffective play of his son Chris, who was replaced late in the second quarter by Kyle Orton.
I’ve checked several sources who claim there has never been an NFL game featuring a broadcaster — a former quarterback — analyzing the quarterback play of his son.
