A lot of times, I like to watch telecasts of my teams’ games from the opponents’ announcing crews.
We listen to ourselves talk so much about our teams that we all end up saying the same thing. It’s a fresh approach to hear what others think of our teams.
And so that’s what I did with the Browns’ preseason opener against Chicago last Saturday at Soldier Field, choosing to tune in to the Bears’ telecast.
It was well worth the effort, to be sure, but not in any way, shape or form how I anticipated.
I heard little — very little — about the Browns, and what I did hear was worthless, and useless. The announcer knew absolutely nothing about the Browns — at least nothing factually correct. They did not even as much as show the Cleveland sideline once during the telecast. Instead, it was a three-hour infomercial for the Bears that bordered on embarrassing, unwatchable. At one point early in the game, the Browns made one of their few big offensive plays of the day, with a wide receiver beating a Bears defender very badly. In the next breath, one of the analysts went on a rant about how good that defender was, and how he could play all these different positions so well.
Huh?
The Browns’ preseason telecasts are much, much better. And I am not being provincial when I say this.
But that’s not the biggest takeaway from the Bears’ telecast. It is, instead, something that I have never seen on an any sports telecast, or programming, anywhere. Why? Because it’s against the rules.
There were four different times during the telecast when the female on the three-member announcing crew — I am not going to use her name; if you want to find it, you can look it up — uttered words and/or phrases that you absolutely, positively can’t use on TV, according to the FCC.
Wow!
Double-wow!!
I was completely stunned!
Think of it this way: As a rule of thumb, if you can’t say it in front of your grandmother, then you can’t say it on TV. Period. End of statement.
Was the analyst unaware of this? Or was she aware of it and just didn’t care? Or did she think she was on satellite radio, where anything goes — there are basically no rules — because it is not under the authority of the FCC?
When you go to a game, you want to see something you’ve never seen before. Likewise, when you turn on the TV to watch a game, you want to see or hear something you’ve never seen or heard before.
And so I did, much to my dismay, and surprise.
On another media note, I heard a great — and completely truthful
and factual — comment about the Browns from Bobby Carpenter, the former Ohio State star linebacker who does a daily sports radio show in Columbus and also works on Sirius radio, almost entirely on the college sports station. It is on the latter platform that he made the comment. He and the other host were talking mainly about the Browns and also a little about the Cincinnati Bengals. In answering a question about which of those teams was more popular in Columbus, Carpenter said the Browns because it’s “an older franchise.” When the other host talked about how “bad the Browns are,” Carpenter said that while they have really struggled in the last 25 tests, “They had great teams in the 1980s.” That is fair. Thank you, Bobby Buckeye, for getting it right. Now, the Browns have to get back to the 1980s. It’s been way, way, way too long.
Steve King
