In the wake of ABC's coverage of the Super Bowl, the subject of Boomer Esiason as a color commentator is all the rage.
Should he stay or should he go? Does ABC need to add a third person to its "Monday Night Football" broadcast booth in order to shore things up?Opinion seems to be divided. The Rocky Mountain News wrote, "Esiason will never win sportscasting honors because he's entertaining and exciting. . . . There are times when Esiason sounds like he's calling a bridge game at a senior citizens center." The Philadelphia Daily News called Esiason "insightful" and opined that "Esiason and (Al) Michaels were everything broadcasters should be at a major event."
The Detroit Free Press wrote that "in the heat of battle, Esiason balked, and sometimes badly. And Sunday was one of those times when a third ABC voice -- fired Dan Dierdorf, even -- might have helped." The New York Daily News, on the other hand, said, "In the biggest game of his TV career, the former quarterback delivered big-time. He was able to clearly relate and impart a player's feeling to this amazing game."
This stuff is fun to read and more fun to argue over around the water cooler or on sports-talk radio. But much of that discussion largely misses the point. Oh, members of the print press -- including yours truly, of course -- love to write about sportscasters' strengths and weaknesses. And we needn't apologize for doing so. After all, these are the same people who hand out praise and criticism to the people they cover and are, thus, open targets themselves.
But where we sometimes get carried away is in the thought that any of this really matters when it comes to a game like the Super Bowl. Other than, perhaps, Esiason's close friends and family, was there anyone out there who watched the game because he was in the booth? And was anyone who wanted to see the game deterred because they'd have to listen to him?
ABC did an admirable job with its Super Bowl coverage, greatly aided by the fact that people are going to remember the Rams-Titans tilt for its great ending. And Esiason wasn't significantly better or worse than he's been the past couple of seasons on "MNF." Or significantly better or worse than most of his TV colleagues.
Not that, in the grand scheme of things -- even in the grand scheme of football and TV -- anything Esiason did really matters all that much.
GOOD JOB STEVE: If Steve Young wants a future as a TV sportscaster, it's his for the taking. His studio show analysis (alongside ESPN's Chris Berman) was great -- he was glib, funny and informative.
He did, however, come up with one of the days worst forecasts: He predicted the Rams would score at least 40 points.
Ah, well. None of us has a completely clear crystal ball.
MISOGYNISTIC: ABC's worst decision on Sunday was to include a pregame segment with the panelists from its daytime chat show "The View." It was bad enough when Barbara Walters said she had absolutely no idea what the Super Bowl is all about, but Meredith Vieira's reply was far worse.
"It's all about the butt," she said, going on to say that what she really likes about football is the tight pants the players wear.
If a man had demeaned women the way Vieira did, he would have been fired by Monday morning. She owes millions of female sports fan a big apology.
WEIRDEST ADVERTISEMENT: This didn't seem to be a particularly good year for Super Bowl commercials, although the cat-herding and cheetah-wrangling spots were fun.
But the day's most-anticipated advertisement was just a little bit creepy. Not because paralyzed actor Christopher Reeve was (through digital magic) shown walking a few years from now, but because the spot was for an investment firm (Nuveen). It smacked just a bit too much of exploiting tragedy for commercial gain.