“Getting to the Bottom of All The Analysis”

“Getting to the Bottom of All The Analysis”
Bubbles16

The only thing I find more annoying than eight months of constant jibber jabber about the political “race” in this country is watching the two weeks of sports coverage before the Super Bowl.

How much analysis does one person need to get ready to watch a football game?

Furthermore, how much analysis does one need to decide whom to vote for, or to help you decide whether or not you should buy stock in Bob Evans?

Apparently, the folks at ESPN think that you need to have every possible scenario of the big game analyzed by their “expert” panels of former football players turned journalists and witty pencil necked nobodies that have no business being on a football panel except when you remember that they are the ones that have the college degree in journalism.

Just like Vegas gets a bit excessive and allows people to bet on everything from the coin toss to the color of the ladies underwear worn by the back judge, sports journalists have evolved from the old time stringer “journo” armed only with a typewriter and a press pass tucked into his funny little hat, to these Armani suit wearing windbags who get their hair and makeup done more often than a lonely “cougar” and actually believe that they hold the “five keys to victory” for the Giants to defeat the Patriots.

It’s remarkable.

We live in a world where Cris Collinsworth, Joe Theismann and Phil Simms are all award-winning sports journalists. And you wonder why everyone thinks that the media is a joke. The media welcomes in a bunch of “faces” that don’t actually bring anything to the table other than their “face” and then they spew their opinions live on camera into the world and they get paid an obscene amount of money for it. The viewer mainly wants to watch the game and see some highlights of other games while hoping to see fewer erectile dysfunction commercials than ones for their favorite beer company while they enjoy a few beers.

What’s next, a Pulitzer for Shannon Sharpe? If he could get through a highlight package without Dan Marino’s help or even sounding like he didn’t have a handful of marbles in his mouth, I’d be amazed.

It’s not that I’m saying that he can’t speak the English language with great aplomb. All I’m saying is that in an industry where diction and eloquence is quite important, he’d be lucky to get through the first tongue twisters that you go through in “journo” school.

I’d like to see him say “Unique New York” five times in a row.

Although, I will admit that having former football players in the front of the camera is often quite comical. You have to look no further than the aforementioned Shannon Sharpe and Phil Simms for that.

Sharpe had one of the most memorable zingers on the Baltimore Ravens of all time when he said, “I have a better chance winning the Kentucky Derby on a donkey than the Ravens do at winning a Super Bowl with Kyle Boller throwing the ball.”

As far as Phil Simms goes, I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but he often says some very homoerotic things about the players during the games, and it’s kind of weird. There’s actually a whole website full of quotes throughout his broadcasting career that can be taken in a very creepy way. My personal favorite was when he commented on Tom Brady trying to quarterback sneak through two tons of linemen to get to the endzone with this Pulitzer worthy quip: “That Tom Brady, he is a handsome man. He’s also fearless and likes the action.”

I digress.

You kind of have to feel sorry for political journalists because they are stuck following around the candidates for months into places like Iowa and Wisconsin and listen to the most boring speeches of all time, and left to report on whether there is a difference between “working” for change, “demanding” change, and “hoping” for change.

At the end of it, all these defeated journalists have left after months of having almost none of their questions really answered and watching Dennis Kucinich waste everyone’s time with his attempt to get anyone to vote for him, they resort to the clichéd comparisons of the Presidential race to horseracing and boxing.

I’m just waiting for the candidates to “take off the gloves” on the hard issues and make a strong move in “the home stretch.”

Oi freaking Vey!

I wonder if these commentators think that the world could not enjoy the big game without their constant yammering about things that might happen in the 3rd quarter? Perhaps they only have two more weeks to keep their lips pressed firmly to the backside of young Tom Brady or try to get Eli Manning to do an interview with a piece of straw hanging out of his mouth. I mean, how “aw shucks” can you get?

Somehow after all the talk, I find myself not even caring about the game anymore. It’s overkill on a product that has never lived up to the hype as being the world’s biggest sporting event.

It’s much like a recent email that I received from a reader who was simultaneously shaking his head and his fist at Buddy Jenkins of Jolly Roger for having “his hand out looking for a tax break” just like the Trimper family did in recent months.

Now I won’t say that there isn’t a case or even a need to keep those amusement parks in Ocean City, because Lord knows, there isn’t much to do for families around these parts, but what I do think is that people are starting to call “B.S.” to a lot of the big wigs down here when they say they aren’t making ends meet.

All the talk is making people start to not care about the product that is Ocean City or in this case, Jolly Roger.

Just like too much talk about the big game can take away any desire to watch the big game, isn’t it possible that seeing rich folk ask for freebies and tax breaks might cause the hard working consumer to not want to visit the rich folk’s establishments?

It’s a valid question.

The problem is that we analyze every aspect of things like a football game, and we care more about who Terry Bradshaw is picking or what Tom Brady had for breakfast than we do about the tax breaks for the rich or a long-term plan to promote this town as a tourism destination.

I’ve got the answer to our advertising woes as a town, and it is recession proof.

Cheerleaders.

Analyze that while you watch the big game.

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