Distraction indeed.
As a Green Bay Packer fan, without coughing up for DirectTV there’s no guarantee their games will be on TV out in Bakersfield. But I do have access to all the Packer games on radio via XM-Sirius.
If the game is at home, the home team’s broadcast is the one XM uses. So far so good, as the Packer’s duo of Wayne Larrivee and Larry McCarren is fair, insightful and fun.
Not so good are the opponent’s announcers, those I hear for road games. Case in point comes from Friday’s game against the Arizona Cardinals, whose announcers Dave Pasch and Ron Wolfley are a bunch of “homers.”
Wolfley is awful, repeating ad nauseum words and terms like “slice of humble pie” and “sauce” (his word for zip on a pass). And both Pasch and Wolfley are complete homers, apparently blinded by Arizona’s fluke Super Bowl team last season, bemoaning “cheap” penalties, suggesting several Cardinal draft picks were incredible “steals” and otherwise making mountains out of molehills in what was a preseason game.
Preseason football means nothing, because coaches regularly bench their starters early in the game or try untested schemes or plays before the games really count. Yet, on plays when the Cardinals’ Matt Leinart was slicing and dicing Green Bay third- and fourth-string defense, Pasch and Laramie were agog at how Leinart had rediscovered his mojo.
Please. Could it be that he was facing weaker talent?
I understand radio announcers will have a natural loyalty to the teams they’re paid to cover, but the good ones are fair and insightful. And in an age where satellite radio puts your broadcasts in front of more hardcore football fans than ever, wouldn’t you want to bring your best game as an announcer rather than mailing it in?