Well folks, we survived! We made it through a long, football-less summer. College football gave us everything we wanted in week 1 and now it is time to turn our attention to the NFL.
Arky, Demetri and Garrett are back again to highlight everything and everyone that is great when it comes to the coverage of America’s national obsession. So here is the full schedule for the NFL edition of Countdown to Coverage:
TUESDAY (9/6): Best Local Radio Show
WEDNESDAY (9/7): Best National Radio Show
THURSDAY (9/8): Best Pregame Show
FRIDAY (9/9): Best Insider
MONDAY (9/12): Best TV Broadcast Team
Here we are at the end of the road. Today, we reveal the boys’ picks for the best play-by-play booth in the NFL.
All offseason, every time someone got a new eight-figure contract, we heard the same bitching and moaning from the masses. “I don’t watch a game because of who the announcers are.” Maybe that is true, but you definitely notice and talk about it when an announcer, analyst or entire broadcast team is bad. Just ask Jason Witten. You all scared him out of the booth and right back onto the field!
Who is in the booth may not be your primary concern, but clearly it does matter. So with that in mind, here are the picks for the best play-by-play booth on TV from Arky, Demetri and Garrett.
JIM NANTZ & TONY ROMO by Arky Shea
Jim Nantz is the epitome of the clean, pure, solid broadcast. The highs are not too high. The lows, however, don’t seemingly exist. It’s a professional, high-quality broadcast from his end. He takes nothing away from the game itself. He lets it speak it’s truth to all of us while he adds a little color of detail along the way. The game is the story and there is no one more refined at allowing that to happen that Nantz. He’s a smooth, well-timed engine that hums like a peak NFL broadcast play-by-play should.
What Nantz doesn’t do, he is swell at allowing his broadcast partner to fill-in: the real color of the game. Tony Romo has been my favorite partner with Nantz in any sport and it’s because Romo came in like a wrecking ball and Nantz didn’t try to take away the shiny off his bumper. We know Romo brought out the big guns by predicting plays and the most important thing: he got a high-percentage correct. Television booths don’t get a lot social attention for being good, but they can get it for being different. Nantz allowed Romo to do that early and often and the young buck delivered. Since then, he has become a lot less Nostradmaus and a lot more of a feeler of the game. You can hear Romo sometimes anguish on official replays because it’s exactly what we all are doing. He’s fun, he’s interested and he got off to a roaring start. I can’t wait to continue to see his evolution.
JOE BUCK & TROY AIKMAN by Demetri Ravanos
Guys, check your calendar. What happens today? What did we spend the entire offseason – hell, the entirety of the last four offseasons talking about? We should all be writing about ESPN FINALLY getting Monday nights right with the best booth since Madden and Summerall.
Joe Buck and Troy Aikman make every game sound more important. I mean, Jesus Christ! How many times did FOX send them to Dallas to watch a 3-10 Washington team take on the 5-8 Cowboys and say “alright fellas, polish that turd!”? Tony Romo wouldn’t even be famous enough to waltz into a top booth after retirement without Buck and Aikman selling us on his greatness.
That is the level of skill ESPN is getting. Monday Night Football quit trying to find pieces that could be good and went out and landed the best in the game period.
MIKE TIRICO & CRIS COLLINSWORTH by Garrett Searight
As I mentioned during our college portion of Countdown to Coverage, the television play-by-play announcer’s job is pretty simple: tell me the “who” of the “who, what, when, and where”, and set your analyst up to shine.
Collinsworth, when you get past the sometimes hokey delivery, is one of if not the best analysts in the game. His preparation is apparent, his knowledge is usually on full display, and he understands the game from several different perspectives. Tirico, while forced at times, delivers in big moments. There’s a reason NBC was ok with letting the contract of Al Michaels expire. Because Tirico is a more than capable replacement. I don’t expect to see a drop off of Sunday Night Football‘s excellence with Tirico at the helm.
