Weekend wrap: Life after Costas at NBC? Olympics show new guard at network

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Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports media…

Life after Costas: Not that it will happen anytime soon, but Richard Deitsch of SI.com reports that Bob Costas’ eye issues gave a glimpse of what it will be like without him. From Deitsch’s interview with NBC Sports chairman Mark Lazarus.

You had six days without Bob Costas as the primetime host. How — and did – his absence make you think about the long-term succession for a staffer who has been one of the best Olympic hosts in history?

We said after Sochi we would start to think about what life after Bob might be, whether post-Rio, post-Pyeongchang, post-Tokyo, whenever he does not want to do it anymore. It is a big time commitment for a host. It is tons of research, tons of preparation and a ton of time away from your family. Certainly, we would be foolish not to be thinking about what a succession might look like. That is part of my job. I think about that for all sports. This obviously is a little bit of a wake-up call and it says make sure you are prepared because that day will come eventually. It’s not a theoretical.

Life after Costas II: Jason McIntyre of Big Lead writes about the potential candidates to replace Costas. Not that it will happen any time soon.

Ernie Johnson, TNT: Lazarus was previously the President of Turner Sports. He obviously is very familiar with the work of Johnson, who is versatile enough to have hosted MLB, NBA and World Cup in the studio, as well as called some Olympic events. There’s an easy bonhomie about Johnson, which is just one reason he’s part of the most popular postgame show in sports, Inside the NBA.

Josh Elliott, ABC: From Sportscenter to Good Morning America to the Olympics? According to Page 6, he’s currently in contract negotiations with ABC, but if NBC can dangle a future role (the next Matt Lauer?) on the Today Show, and the Olympics, would that been enough to pry him away from Disney? Problem: It’s tough to see GMA letting another member of the team that got them to the top walk away (Sam Champion left for NBC/Weather Channelin December).

Chris Fowler, ESPN: If he’s not the best host ESPN has, he’s got to be right there near the top. Fowler appears to be a longshot to leave for NBC, though – especially since all indications are that he’s muscled his way into taking Brent Musburger’s job calling college football games each week with Kirk Herbstreit (and still hosting Gameday, and tennis, and, basically, whatever he wants at ESPN). Fowler hosts the best pregame show in sports, Gameday, at a time when pregame shows are passe.

New guard at NBC: Tripp Mickle and John Ourand of Sports Business Daily reports on how these are NBC’s first Olympics in which Dick Ebersol didn’t participate. He was on hand as a consultant for London in 2012.

These are the Games of Lazarus and Bell. There was no doubt that they were the ones in charge, with Bell focused on production and Lazarus on business. Tasked with replacing the legendary Ebersol as the Olympics’ producer for the London Games in 2012, they have developed a collaborative style that permeates NBC’s entire Olympic operation.

The differences can be seen everywhere: whiteboard meetings that include both business and production executives; live daytime telecasts of figure skating on a cable channel; the streaming of every single winter competition.

NBC’s Olympic strategy in Sochi presents a microcosm of the direction the network plans to take with the Olympics in the coming years.

NBC analysis: The crew at Awful Announcing analyze NBC’s coverage of the Olympics in a podcast.

-Best & Worst Moments from NBC’s coverage thus far.
-Bob Costas’ pink eye and how the network handled an unexpected “crisis”
-The live versus tape delay debate and why NBC’s effort towards sports fans is better in 2014, but still a long ways from perfect.
-Record ratings for NBCSN and whether or not the Olympics actually pulls them ahead of Fox Sports 1 in the race for #2 behind ESPN.
-Why did the Bode Miller interview receive such an immense backlash?
-Tara Lipinski & Johnny Weir being the stars of Sochi and how NBC can use them going forward.
-Favorite moments from the Olympic competition – hockey and curling feature prominently here.
-An overall grade for NBC’s coverage.

New Dodgers network: Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News writes about the distribution problems for the new network.

The two-million Time Warner Cable customers in the Dodgers’ coverage map are already in. It’s just that TWC hasn’t announced the channel numbers yet.

For the rest of you — including some two million Southern California users of DirecTV and thousands more on other systems — it depends on how needy you’ve become over the last few weeks.

Tara and Johnny: Richard Sandomir of the New York Times writes how Tara Lipiniski and Johnny Weir have become big stars during the Olympics.

Weir is generally calmer yet colorful. And his chemistry with Lipinski suggests an ongoing, enthusiastic conversation among confidants.

“We’re very good friends, and we have the best time educating people about our sport,” Weir said. Asked if he thinks he has surprised viewers who might have expected analysis as flashy as his wardrobes, he said: “I come from a small town in Pennsylvania, so I’ve spent a lot of time educating my family about my sport. It’s something I’ve learned to do without being aggressive or arrogant.”

Don Van Natta Jr.: Cory Collins at the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana reports on what Van Natta had to say to students during a recent visit. He discussed his book, Wonder Girl, on Babe Didrikson Zaharais.

“Her whole life was a quest to find a place to play,” said Van Natta. “She had a lot to overcome. She wanted to be the greatest athlete of all time.”

A woman with a complicated legacy.

“One of the things that surprised me most was how mean she was, how selfish she was,” Van Natta admitted. “She had to be that way, in her mind, to succeed, to get noticed.”

And a woman, despite success never since rivaled, largely forgotten. Until now.

“There really hasn’t been a lot of attention given to her in the last 40 years,” he said. “But the more I found out about Babe, the more intrigued I got.”

Joe Goddard: My old pal says farewell after 44 years of writing sports about Hinsdale Central.

Though he never attended Hinsdale Central, Goddard was inducted into the Hinsdale Central Foundation Hall of Fame in 2009 and is one of the few honorees without a direct connection to the school.

Under his picture in the school’s Alumni Room, part of the dedication reads: “Though not an alumnus, teacher or school administrator, no one has done more to chronicle the great athletic traditions of Hinsdale Central than Joe Goddard. His love of Hinsdale, the local high school, its sports teams and athletes, and his lifelong journalistic professionalism make Joe Goddard a local treasure.”

Long time: Classic TV Sports looks at the longest-running announcers duos in TV sports history. Who is No. 1?

Joe Buck and Tim McCarver worked together from 1996-2013 in the Fox baseball TV booth. How does their on-air partnership of 18 years stack up historically against other network TV announcer duos? Which national broadcast pairings have remained intact the longest in various sports? Which tandems hold the longest active streaks? To follow up on my look last year at consecutive season streaks by network TV broadcasters, here is a summary of my research on similar streaks by pairs of announcers.

 

DVR alert: NBC to air powerful films during Saturday’s coverage

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Here are the previews and rundowns for a couple compelling films during NBC’s Olympic coverage on Saturday.

Long Way Home: The Jessica Strong Story

Paralympic athlete Jessica Long will be the subject of a 20-minute feature, Long Way Home: The Jessica Long Story, that will air within NBC’s Olympic coverage Saturday night.

Long Way Home chronicles the story of Long, a world-class swimmer, 12-time Paralympic gold medalist, and 21-year old American from a Baltimore suburb, who was born in Russia and adopted by American parents. The feature tracks Long’s journey from the States to Siberia – Baltimore to Bratsk – to meet her birth family.

A double amputee and a Russian-born orphan, Jessica Long has grown up as two people simultaneously, a dedicated and determined young woman who has used that drive to become one of the most-decorated U.S. Paralympians and also someone who, from 13 months old at her adoption from a Russian orphanage, has longed to know who she really is.

Over the course of Long Way Home: The Story of Jessica Long, Long tells the remarkable story of how she discovered her first family, and eventually embarked on a journey through a past she never knew. Originally named Tatiana Olegovna Kirillova, Long retraces her adoption back to her orphanage in Irkutsk, Russia, and on to what would have been her hometown of Bratsk, deep in the heart of Siberia. It’s here that we see the overwhelming moment where she comes face-to-face for the first time, not only with her birth mother, but her biological father, brothers and sisters – the Russian family she had never met.

It’s an adventure that takes her more than 7,000 miles from the world and family she grew up knowing.  From the States to Siberia, the journey is a test for her physically and mentally, but through it all Long poignantly takes us through the process of coming to grips with her Russian roots. In the end it leads her to a profound personally discovery, her two half’s have helped make her the whole individual that she is – Jessica Tatiana Long.

A production team from NBC Olympics accompanied Long on a three-day journey to reach the adoption center in Irkutsk and the 18-hour train ride to Bratsk.

ABOUT JESSICA LONG

Born with fibular hemimelia, the lower part of Long’s legs were amputated when she was 18 months old. She learned to walk on prosthesis. Now a 17-time Paralympic medalist – including 12 gold medals – Long holds 13 world records and is a two-time U.S. Paralympic Sports Woman of the Year.

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Lokomotiv

NBC Olympics will present a special documentary – “Lokomotiv” – chronicling the tragedy surrounding the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey club, as well as the rebuilding of the team, as the worldwide hockey community banded with the Russian city to revive one of hockey’s richest traditions. The special will air Saturday, Feb. 22 within NBC’s afternoon Olympic coverage.

The NBC Olympics-produced documentary, narrated by Liev Schreiber, examines the tragic events surrounding Sept. 7, 2011, when an airplane carrying the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey team of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), crashed outside the Russian city of Yaroslavl, killing 44 of 45 people on board, including 37 players, coaches and staff. Nearly 100,000 people attended a memorial service, including Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The roster and coaching staff included 11 hometown players, and the following nine former NHLers; Pavol Demitra, Ruslan Salei, Josef Vasicek, Karel Rachunek, Karlis Skrastins, Alexander Vasunov, assistant coaches Alexander Karpovtsev and Igor Korolev, and head coach Brad McCrimmon.

In addition, the team featured five Olympians from five different countries; Demitra (Slovakia), Salei (Belarus), Vasicek (Czech Republic), Skrastins (Latvia), and Stefan Liv (Sweden). Demitra, Salei, and Skrastins all served as captains of their respective teams at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.

Here is a link to the clip.

 

Montville: BBWAA needs to rescind Bill Conlin’s Hall of Fame baseball writer honor

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In light of the accusations that he molested young children, Leigh Montville writes at Sports on Earth that the Baseball Writers Association of America should rescind Bill Conlin’s 2011 J.G. Spink Award.

Not a bad idea.

Montville writes:

The picture of the late Bill Conlin that is used most often in stories about him these days (including this one) is a shot from the ceremonies in Cooperstown. He is wearing a pair of those old man glasses with yellow lenses and he has the white hair and the little white beard and he is at a podium that reads “National Baseball Hall of Fame” on the front. His right hand is in the air and he is reading from a prepared script and no doubt he is being loud and strong and opinionated, the way he was during his 45 years as a Philadelphia sportswriter.
This was his day of days. July 23, 2011. He was the recipient of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, which moved him into a small corner of sportswriter immortality near the best of the baseball players he covered. His name was now on a list with Grantland Rice, Damon Runyon, Ring Lardner, Red Smith, Jim Murray and assorted other famous baseball wordsmiths.

Montville writes later, “It’s enough to make you sick.”

Montville implores the BBWAA to take action.

The J.G. Taylor Spink Award is chosen by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, the same BBWAA that chooses the baseball players for the Hall of Fame. Conlin received 188 votes from 434 ballots cast by BBWAA members to win the 2011 award. These are the same people who have wrung their hands in the past few years, held their noses and refused to allow the all-time leading home run hitter, the all-time hits leader, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner and other assorted famous players into the building for assorted transgressions. If they had known about Conlin’s transgressions, there is little doubt that they also would not have allowed him to enter.

All they need now is a second chance. Change some bylaws. Bend some rules. Take a vote to rescind the 2011 vote. This is an arbitrary election, an arbitrary process. Miss America, for example, would have been dethroned in a heartbeat for much less serious charges. There does not have to be any due process. There does not have to be any statute of limitations.

Just get the guy out of the picture.

Al Michaels: Legendary ‘Do you believe’ call almost wasn’t part of movie, ‘Miracle’

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It is the four-year ritual for Al Michaels. When the Winter Olympics rolls around, he repeatedly gets asked about his legendary “Do you believe in miracles?” call which punctuated the United States’ legendary victory over Russia.

Michaels is quick to point out that 34 years have passed since the 1980 Olympics.

“If you’re under 40, you don’t remember it,” Michaels said.

The call, though, remains vibrant to the next generation thanks to the movie, Miracle, starring Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks.

“I can’t tell you how many youth coaches tell me they show that movie at the beginning of the season,” Michaels said. “The movie has given it a different life.”

However, here’s the kicker: Michaels’ famous call almost didn’t make it into the movie. I’ll let Michaels take it from here:

*******

The director (Gavin O’Connor), a terrific guy, asked me to be part of the movie. I remember the executives at Disney wanted to make it into a love story. Thankfully, Gavin got them back on track.

I said, ‘Gavin, here’s the deal. Whatever I do, I’m going to do it as closely as I would have done (if he was calling it live). Nobody’s going to write this for me. I’ll be happy to connect the dots and put in the context.’

I said I wouldn’t re-do the last 30 seconds (of the U.S.-Russia game). That was a non-starter for me.

Well, there was this sound guy. He was over-the-top, really over-bearing. He was crazy that I wouldn’t do the last 30 seconds. The original audio sounded muddy. He wanted me to re-do what I actually said, but he’s got violins coming in. He’s doing it as the artist.

I said, no. I told Gavin, ‘You’re going to have to live with this.’

The sound guy was pissed off. During the last 30 seconds, he puts the music in so loud that he drowns me out.

Now this is before the movie comes out. My wife and I are at a private screening with (Disney heads) Michael Eisner and Bob Iger. They play the movie, and the lights come up. Eisner says to me, ‘Where’s the line?’ I explain to him what happened. He gets on the phone and says, ‘Tell Gavin I want to hear Al’s call.’

If not for Eisner, I would have been drowned out. The whole thing really was an instructive piece about the business and egos.

 

 

This is different: Fox Sports hires noted analyst to analyze ‘sincerity’ of athletes, coaches

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Is this Fox Sports’ answer to Nate Silver?

The network is bringing in Frank Luntz to, get this, to assess “the validity and sincerity of what people say.”

What, coaches and athletes aren’t always sincere? Wish Fox Sports had Luntz for Tiger Woods’ famous “I’m Sorry” confession that aired on national TV.

Another question: Will Luntz analyze the sincerity of Fox’s analysts when they express their views on controversial topics? Are they holding back at criticizing former teammates or coaches? Now that would be interesting.

From the Fox Sports release:

World-renowned communications expert Dr. Frank Luntz, CEO of Luntz Global, an international research powerhouse, joins FOX Sports 1 as its exclusive sports communications analyst, effective immediately.  The announcement was made today by Scott Ackerson, FOX Sports 1’s Executive Vice President, News.

“Frank Luntz is an expert in reading between the lines and assessing the validity and sincerity of what people say, whether it’s said during press conferences or off-the-cuff,” said Ackerson. “We’re looking for him to apply his unique expertise to what’s said by sports newsmakers.  He’s also an expert in conducting focus group research that gets to the heart of what people are thinking.  He’s been measuring America’s political pulse for decades, and now he’ll be measuring its sports pulse.”

 Dr. Luntz’s contributions to FOX Sports 1, primarily during FOX SPORTS LIVE, the channel’s nightly program providing news, highlights and commentary, are essentially two-fold.  He is available either live in-studio or via remote location to provide analysis on breaking news, press conferences and current events pertaining to sports.  Separately, Dr. Luntz hosts a segment called Sound Off, which features taped focus group discussions featuring audience members that cover a range of sports topics.  Offering viewers independent analysis on important sports issues, Sound Off also gives fans an opportunity to be heard on the day’s most controversial sports topics.  Sound Off premieres tonight on FOX SPORTS LIVE (11:00 PM ET), with the panel addressing the question, “If you were an NFL GM, would you draft Michael Sam?”  Results are certain to create discussion and debate among the nation’s millions of sports fans.

“It may surprise people, but sports are my passion, and I love the excitement and intensity on and off the field,” offered Dr. Luntz.  “There is a right way and a wrong way to communicate to viewers, fans and players, and I plan to bring analysis and accountability to the language of sports and those who play them.”

If you watch Fox News, which I don’t, you are familiar with Luntz.  He has served as a Republican party strategist, helping to write Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” in the ’90s.

There’s this passage from a story on Luntz in The Atlantic:

Luntz is not sure what to do with his newfound awareness. He’s still best known for his political resume, but politics hasn’t been his principal business for some time: He still advises his friends here and there, but he no longer has any ongoing political contracts. (Corporations and television networks, not politicians, are his main sources of income.) He goes to as many NFL games as he can, where he sits in the owner’s box courtesy of onetime client Jerry Richardson, the owner of the Carolina Panthers, with whom he has developed a close rapport. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this,” he says, meaning D.C., the schmoozing, the negativity, the division. At football games, “People are happy, families are barbecuing outside, people are playing pitch and toss. A little too much beer, but you can’t have everything. They’re just happy and they’re celebrating with each other and it’s such a mix of people.” The first week of football season, he went to four games in eight days: Sunday night, Monday night, Thursday night, and then Sunday again.

 

 

 

Just read this: Roger Angell on joys and heartbreaks of living into 90s

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If you read something better, please let me know. It will have to be beyond outstanding to top Roger Angell’s piece in the New Yorker on life at 93.

He begins:

Check me out. The top two knuckles of my left hand look as if I’d been worked over by the K.G.B. No, it’s more as if I’d been a catcher for the Hall of Fame pitcher Candy Cummings, the inventor of the curveball, who retired from the game in 1877. To put this another way, if I pointed that hand at you like a pistol and fired at your nose, the bullet would nail you in the left knee. Arthritis.

Now, still facing you, if I cover my left, or better, eye with one hand, what I see is a blurry encircling version of the ceiling and floor and walls or windows to our right and left but no sign of your face or head: nothing in the middle. But cheer up: if I reverse things and cover my right eye, there you are, back again. If I take my hand away and look at you with both eyes, the empty hole disappears and you’re in 3-D, and actually looking pretty terrific today. Macular degeneration.

I’m ninety-three, and I’m feeling great. Well, pretty great, unless I’ve forgotten to take a couple of Tylenols in the past four or five hours, in which case I’ve begun to feel some jagged little pains shooting down my left forearm and into the base of the thumb. Shingles, in 1996, with resultant nerve damage.

And there’s this:

I’ve endured a few knocks but missed worse. I know how lucky I am, and secretly tap wood, greet the day, and grab a sneaky pleasure from my survival at long odds. The pains and insults are bearable. My conversation may be full of holes and pauses, but I’ve learned to dispatch a private Apache scout ahead into the next sentence, the one coming up, to see if there are any vacant names or verbs in the landscape up there. If he sends back a warning, I’ll pause meaningfully, duh, until something else comes to mind.

On the other hand, I’ve not yet forgotten Keats or Dick Cheney or what’s waiting for me at the dry cleaner’s today. As of right now, I’m not Christopher Hitchens or Tony Judt or Nora Ephron; I’m not dead and not yet mindless in a reliable upstate facility. Decline and disaster impend, but my thoughts don’t linger there. It shouldn’t surprise me if at this time next week I’m surrounded by family, gathered on short notice—they’re sad and shocked but also a little pissed off to be here—to help decide, after what’s happened, what’s to be done with me now. It must be this hovering knowledge, that two-ton safe swaying on a frayed rope just over my head, that makes everyone so glad to see me again. “How great you’re looking! Wow, tell me your secret!” they kindly cry when they happen upon me crossing the street or exiting a dinghy or departing an X-ray room, while the little balloon over their heads reads, “Holy shit—he’s still vertical!”

As I said, just spend a few minutes with Mr. Angell. You’ll be glad you did.

Bob Costas is barely on the air in primetime; NY Times’ takes out stopwatch

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I don’t know about you, but I have noticed that you barely see Bob Costas during NBC’s primetime coverage. Basically, he serves as a bridge from one sport to another, sitting or standing in that big studio.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times had the same impression. He went one step further and used a stopwatch to quantify how much viewers see Bob. The answer: Not much.

Sandomir writes:

He has no fixed length of on-screen time. But it turns out he’s not on much. In his first two nights back after sitting out six days with the infection, Costas was a visible presence for a mere 5 minutes 28 seconds on Monday and for 10:17 on Tuesday, nearly half of it an interview with the figure skating analysts Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir.

Costas was surprised by his figure for Monday’s show. “If you told me 15 minutes, I would say that sounds right,” he said.

The on-air totals for Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira, who filled in during Costas’s convalescence, were just as modest during the three random nights I measured them, ranging from 3:57 to 8:18. (All these times exclude the minute or two of opening narration to set the stage for the night.)

And then there’s this:

Depending on the sports that fit into the nightly jigsaw puzzle, Costas might disappear from the air for long stretches. On Monday night, at around 9:40 p.m. Eastern, Costas wrapped up bobsledding, and NBC headed to the final ice dancing performances. NBC went without Costas for about 90 minutes as it broadcast a dance and a commercial break, the kiss-and-cry, the next routine and a break, and on and on, until Meryl Davis and Charlie White won the gold medal.

“I don’t mind when I’m not on,” Costas said. “I will do as much or as little as you need me to do. If you need to do five minutes and that gets it done, that’s fine.”

Yet here’s the key point. It doesn’t matter how long Costas is on. He is the face of NBC’s Olympic coverage.

“Bob’s impact on the Olympics is greater than the amount of minutes he’s actually seen,” said Mike Weisman, a former executive producer of NBC Sports and a longtime friend of Costas’s. “And when Bob wasn’t there, it was a major story. How many other broadcasters can you say that about?”

Recalling the man who brought Harry Caray to the Cubs; changed course of franchise

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Most Cubs fans never heard of James Dowdle. Few individuals had a greater impact on the Cubs with just one move.

It was Dowdle, a Tribune Co. executive, who brought Harry Caray over to the North Side in 1981. Thanks to the WGN Superstation, Caray became a national icon with the Cubs. In the process, he made Wrigley Field the place to be for fans in Chicago and beyond.

Dowdle died yesterday at the age of 79. Chicago Tribune baseball writer Paul Sullivan did a column on his decision to hire Caray, and how it almost didn’t happen because of resistance within Tribune Co.

Sullivan writes:

As head of Tribune broadcasting, Dowdle made the best off-field acquisition in Cubs’ history after the 1981 season, hiring the popular Caray away from the Sox despite opposition from other Tribune Co. executives. It turned a boring, losing franchise into an interesting, yet-still-losing team in 1983, before that sun-kissed summer of ’84.

Suddenly, Caray and the Cubs became must-see TV.

Caray’s shocking switch from the Sox to the Cubs was front page news in Chicago. Hard to believe now, but some weren’t sure Caray’s shtick would go over on the North Side.

“Being born and raised on the South Side, I learned that you can move from south to north,” Dowdle told me in ’98. “You just can’t move north to south. Harry’s enthusiasm was overwhelming, and one thing Cub fans have is enthusiasm. How could you not like someone with so much enthusiasm?”

The saga began in 1981 when Caray, upset with Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf’s decision to move their broadcasts to pay-TV in the future, made a call to some people he knew with the Cubs, asking if Tribune Co. would be interested in hiring him to replace the retiring Jack Brickhouse.

Dowdle was intrigued, but knew hiring the “Mayor of Rush Street” would be a tough sell to board members. During negotiations, the two ultimately kicked the lawyers out of the room and hashed it out themselves.

Dowdle summarized their discussion in a ’98 interview with former Tribune baseball columnist Jerome Holtzman:

“I said, ‘Harry, you can’t be running up and down Rush Street. And you can’t be as controversial as you have been. This is the Tribune Co. You have to have a lower profile.’ And Harry said, ‘I haven’t got as far as I am today by not listening to the guy in charge. If you don’t mind, I might disagree with you and give you my opinion. But you have the last say.'”

 

Posted in MLB

Questions: What makes CBS think Tony Gonzalez will be any good on NFL Today? Is Bart Scott next to join pregame show?

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Question, questions….

For starters, let’s begin with the age-old concept of TV networks falling in love with the recently retired big star. They drool at the thought of the future Hall of Famer fresh off the field becoming part of their studio show, or as an analyst on games.

Dan Marino and Shannon Sharpe once fell into that category. CBS was thrilled to be able to add them to NFL Today.

Now they are gone as of yesterday.

I bring this up to temper the anticipation about CBS jumping on the Tony Gonzalez train. The tight end was a popular star. He’s good looking and glib.

However, will he make a good analyst on NFL Today?

In an interview with USA Today, there was this passage from Gonzalez:

Gonzalez admitted he only recently felt comfortable with the idea of making a full-time transition to television even though his marquee looks and engaging personality made him an obvious candidate for the switch.

“I didn’t really want to do this until three years ago. I was kind of intimidated and didn’t have the experience,” said Gonzalez, who frequently made guest appearances on other networks in recent years.

“I’ve been able to get somewhat comfortable. It’ll be tough, and I’ll have to learn and get as many reps as I can in front of the camera. … Everything I’ve done before, you work for it for a long time. But I have prepared for this, though I admit quarterbacks are more used to it.”

Indeed, therein lies the potential issue for CBS. Does Gonzalez have anything to say?

CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus obviously thinks so. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have hired him.

However, Gonzalez knows he is raw, and that this figures to be a work in progress. Even then, will his presence be enough to lure viewers away from the Terry Bradshaw show on Fox? It’s a tough road for CBS.

For now, though, Gonzalez is the celebrated new guy. That is, until the next new guy comes along.

*******

McManus said yesterday that he is looking to make another addition to the panel. Speculation is that Bart Scott will be the choice.

Now that would be a great hire. The former Jets linebacker shined on The Other Pregame Show on CBS Sports Network.

 

Posted in NFL