Not to be cruel or cold, but what difference does it make?
By now, you know at least as well as I that NFL pregame studio shows are not only a colossal waste of our time, it hardly matters if the panelists include Jo Jo the Dog Boy, Caligula Jones and Estes Kefauver, we wouldn’t spend 10 seconds watching if it weren’t followed by an NFL game.
Last week, Phil Simms and Boomer Esiason, after over 20 years each with CBS, were given the heave-ho, and will be replaced with former QB Matt Ryan and superstar pass rusher J.J. Watt.
And so what? Neither will add a single viewer outside of their loved ones — not as long as a kickoff follows. Same thing with Simms and Esiason from the day they first took a seat in CBS’s studio.
That studio, during the Simms and Esiason years, has undergone all sorts of costly cosmetic improvements and even makeovers — none of which has been worth a darn to viewers.
The contents of the studio show — all of them, on every NFL-affiliated studio show — have been the same: redundant, uncreative, “Who do you like in the Chiefs-Lions game? Right here on CBS, followed by ‘60 Minutes,’ ” and, unless forced belly laughs count, humorless.
Naturally, the NFL must at all times be protected from any thumbs-down opinions, as if Roger Goodell might otherwise refuse to cash billions of dollars in TV money checks.
The sympathetic figure in this latest purge is Simms. Esiason was an unwise hire to begin with — as he was frequently tongue-tied, lost for adjectives, adverbs and useful insights.
He can now continue his role as Weekday Boomer, ditching his gentlemanly CBS facade to concentrate on being a childish name-caller and crude morning drive WFAN co-host who seeks to attract listeners who should by then be seated in their fifth-grade homerooms.
(Esiason never did apologize for mocking ex-Knicks’ exec Donnie Walsh for being relegated to a wheelchair following surgery.)
Simms was another story. Twenty-six years ago, when CBS plucked him from the fumble-fingered clutches of ESPN and NBC, I would have believed that he would become the nation’s most valued NFL on-site analyst. Working with Jim Nantz, Simms didn’t hesitate to place us ahead of both CBS and the NFL.
He’d often debunk stats, work behind the scenes to eliminate stupid graphics, put the knock on players who risked penalties and games with selfish play, and questioned the practicality of ever-changing rules — including “get it right” replay rules that too often got it wrong.
Simms was always prepared, thus always gave us his best, candid shot. He even solidified a good-faith relationship by practicing the forbidden: telling us he was wrong. “See right there in the replay? I was wrong.” Imagine that!
But then something happened, something from the deep inside that carried to the far outside. Simms suddenly became a transparently cautious, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil, smiling NFL spokesman/shill and panderer — what Nantz had become.
Perhaps the most disgusting nationally televised game in NFL history, the 2016 Bengals-Steelers AFC wild-card game in which both teams and their coaches traded chances to lose by allowing their players to act like violent, unhinged, convicts.
The in-game “influencers” included such luminaries as Vontaze Burfect, Adam “Pacman” Jones and a willing sideline participant in Steelers assistant coach Joey Porter. The game was won, 18-16 by Pittsburgh — actually lost by Cincy — with a short field goal after the Bengals were hit with consecutive unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.
Nantz and Simms, who were previously silent throughout what was a senselessly brutal game, finally spoke up after the late-game nadir erupted, and even then much too lightly. I knew then that Simms had changed.
And the next season CBS changed him, assigning him to Devil’s Island — the studio show, where in the end he’d be seen with Esiason sadly selecting Over/Unders in service to CBS’s sportsbook advertisers. CBS replaced him with Tony Romo, signing him for a hideously senseless $180 million.
I could have saved CBS $180 million by telling Simms — ordering him — to resume his days as a No. 1 analyst by being better, different, special. But I’m sure that at $180 million, you, as did CBS, much prefer Romo call a game than Phil Simms. So do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around.
Joe Girardi seems A-OK with Soto’s slow-go around bases
For crying out loud, now Joe Girardi, a YES Yankees commentator, is telling us “truth” that we and most likely he doesn’t believe.
Thursday, the Yankees’ Juan Soto did what he always has throughout his three-team, seven-season career: He hit a ball deep. Then stylishly lingered near the plate to see if it would be a home run, or, in this case, perhaps, a foul ball.
It was neither. As Soto jogged toward first, the ball banged against the left-field wall then along the wall toward center. An inside-the-park number? Perhaps!
But Soto, benched by the Nationals for not hustling, was too late to run. He had to settle for a no-throw triple.
Asked about this by Michael Kay, Girardi not only excused Soto for his indefensible standard minimalism, he rationalized it as not a matter of Soto not hustling but as “a bad read.” Huh.
Is a bad read anything like a bad guess? Is a bad read, whatever that means, a legit defense for not running to first?
Would Girardi as a manager accepted such an excuse?
“Why were you on first instead of second?”
“Bad read.”
“Oh, then I’m good with that.”
Next target for vulgar NY fans?
Mob mentalities come in many forms. If I told you a joke, one on one, and you responded by hollering “Wooo!” in my face, I’d think you’re nuts. A good joke should emit laughter, not “Woooo!!”
Yet a standup comedian when concluding a joke to a larger audience often will hear a group “Wooo!” instead of genuine laughter. Perhaps that’s to show the comic as well as the rest of the audience that you get it.
Now Knicks in-house fans have to get busy finding a Pacer they can chant vulgarities at. Funny, we’ve never seen or heard an individual spectator begin a “F–- fill-in-the-blank!” chant. That guy would usually be avoided like an open sore.
But if you can find three or four bright lights to begin chanting “F–- Embiid,” eight or nine thousand more will soon follow.
It takes more than one village idiot to make a village.
Reader Michael Duncan: “In the early 1970s, A’s owner Charlie Finley suggested that all MLB players become free agents after every season. He was laughed out of the room.
“So, in your wildest dreams, did you ever think that this would be implemented into college sports?”
Heck, I used to think that you had to be able to read and write to be enrolled in any college, let alone be granted a full scholarship among other perks. Not looking good for the good guys.
