How many NFL football experts are there ??

Dude, I’m tellin’ ya……..

I’m just a little bit down on NFL football today. I joined in my buddy’s weekly confidence pool for the first time this year for the games played this past weekend (and last night). I hadn’t joined up to this point because money is so tight. I skipped all of the pools this year that I typically get into. But I was hanging out with him this past Friday night and he convinced me to play this week.

And as seems to be the case with me these days, I lost the $60 prize with exactly 7 seconds left in the Miami-NY Jets game on Monday night. I was in 2nd place entering last night’s game. If the Jets won the game, I won the pool. The Jets were leading until there were seven seconds left and Miami scored the winning touchdown to spoil my evening. It was like my recent luck in Texas Hold ‘Em on PokerStars. It doesn’t matter if I have an Aces/Kings full house, my opponent keeps getting four of a kind on the (final) river card. If I have an Ace high flush, the last card gives my opponent a full boat. No matter what, I just can’t seem to get the money. Last night, the Dolphins got the flush to beat me.

So the NFL is not exactly my favorite form of entertainment today. And it has me thinking again about something the boys and I were mocking once again this Sunday while watching the pre-game shows (and post-game). How many ex-players and ex-coaches are making a mint babbling about these games each week? It seems like there is ten times the number of expert analysts breaking down the games as compared to when I was a kid.

I don’t want to sound like one of those old men talking about how gas was a nickel or a loaf of bread was a penny when they were a child. I was 10-15 years old from the period 1980-1985 and pro football was already the humongous entity that it is today. Coaches had their own Sunday morning TV shows (The Mike Ditka show), there were national cable football shows (Inside the NFL on HBO), the Super Bowl was a global event, etc.

NFL Football was big-time dollars and already competing with baseball as the top sport in the US. But I don’t recall having 68 different people drawing Xs and Os out for me on the blackboard and spending ten minutes talking about how a team isn’t filling the blocking gaps. The saturation of analysis for these games has become downright comical. It seems like if you ever had a cup of coffee in the NFL, you are now qualified to tell us how to build a team and win your games.

When I was little, there was one single pre-game show that I remember. It was hosted by Brent Musburger and he was joined by Irv Cross, the drunken, racist prognosticator Jimmy “The Greek”, and Phyllis George. She would do the nice “slice of life” stories that they dump on Pam Oliver these days. Those four people would generally discuss the games to be played that day and Jimmy “The Greek” would even offer his picks against the spread—–something they don’t (have the guts to) do today. But that was it. A one hour pre-game show and then on to football.

Now we have half of the living Hall of Fame roster out there in their five-thousand dollar suits whooping it up and laughing like they’re at a Richard Pryor concert or something. My buddies and I used to have fun assigning a nickname to the panel…….

Mike Ditka (Mike Dickhead), Chris Collinsworth (Chris Cocksucker), Joe Gibbs (Joe Gibbs head), Ronnie Lott (Ronnie Snot) and then the host James Brown (the hardest working man in sports entertainment).

Now there are too many of these guys for us to even remember…….Howie Long (Howie Schlong), Jimmie Johnson, Michael Strahan, Curt Menafee, Shannon Sharpe, Dan Marino, Boomer Esiason, Bill Cowher (Bill Coward), Keyshawn Johnson, Terry Bradshaw, along with all of the forementioned dudes. And lest we forget the weather tramp Jillian Barberie, the comedian Frank Caliendo, and any special guests they bring in for the week.

They josh around and disect every aspect of the shittiest game like it’s the Super Bowl. They even take positions on a synthetic field there in the actual TV studio (in their five thousand dollar suits and bling-bling) and diagram plays ! They go on-and-on about how the outside linebacker on the Cincinnati Bengals needs to start peeling off his pass coverage when the opposing team looks like they’re going to do a screen pass.

Jesus Christ already….just show the damn game ! But no….there’s more. After the studio guys send it out to the announcing team that will be calling the action, we have to get their analysis too. So there’s ten more minutes of Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, and on-field stooge Tony Siragusa telling us what they think.

Then after we get to watch the actual 3 hour athletic contest that we tuned in for, the post-game recaps begin. NBC has even reunited the popular Sportscenter tandem of Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann. They then tell us what we have just seen in excruciating detail. And before we can watch the game they are fronting, we have to hear Al Michaels give his input.

Somewhere in this mix, I’m missing Tony Dungy, Bob Costas, Tiki Barber, Rodney Harrison, Jerome Bettis, Pam Oliver, Andrea Kremer, Jim Nantz, Lesley Visser, Greg Gumbel, Phil Simms, Jay Glazer, and anyone else who ever donned a uniform (or in the case of the women…wished they had).

Perhaps the funniest part of this hodge-podge is when they bring in a jackass who failed miserably in their last NFL job—-like Matt Millen. Here is a man who single-handedly destroyed the Detroit Lions. They won about 9 out of 55 games under his tenure. But now he’s an in-studio expert who is supposed to tell us how to identify talent, juggle the depth chart, prepare for the draft, and build a winning team. The guys in my fantasy league are smarter than this buffoon.

Is it any wonder why the comedian has out-picked the panel of experts when they predict winners before the games? Frank Caliendo won the contest against Bradshaw, Long, and the rest of the gang last season. And after four weeks, he was leading it again this season. It just shows how much these guys really know. Not a lot.

What the hell ever happened to Irv Cross anyway? Here’s to yesteryear….and the $60 I lost last night.