Giving the remote a workout while checking out the highs and lows from the blessed first Sunday of the NFL season:
Booming: The best broadcast pickup of the season might be Boomer Esiason going to “NFL This Morning” on Fox Sports Net. He’s showing that there is life after getting bounced from ABC’s “Monday Night Football.”
Esiason displayed strong opinions in the opening show, taking on Randy Moss, among others. He always has something to say, and it’s usually interesting.
Esiason also will be back for his second season on radio for the Monday night games, heard locally on WSCR-AM 670. He did a good job there last year. All of which makes you wonder why it didn’t work for him on the TV side.
As for the Fox Sports Net show, it’s much better since it eliminated some of the “Animal House” stuff of last year. But why is comedian Jay Mohr taking part in the roundtable discussions with the rest of the cast? Exactly where did he play football? Give him the boot.
Waiting game: The role of Mr. Scrooge goes to Tom Waddle. He opened “Bears Sunday Live” on WFLD-Ch. 32 by telling fans to forget about this season, and that they might have to wait until 2003 to see anything interesting.
Gee, exactly what WFLD execs wanted to hear, considering the station will air 13 of 16 Bears games this year.
Styling: What’s going on with Chris Berman’s hair? Not only did it get much darker (wonder how that happened?), but he seems to have taken a page from Lou Henson’s stylist. Who knew the other Boomer was so concerned about his do?
The two-hour “NFL Countdown” show had its fill of solid information. Reporter Andrea Kremer delivered with a story on overweight players. However, new addition Steve Young didn’t seem to add much to the mix.
Outdoor games: CBS’ “NFL Today” had a new outdoor set, but it still didn’t block out the goofy guy on the cell phone waving to his friend. Also, the noise from the water fountain was a distraction during some of the segments.
The streamlined show–three analysts, down from four–moved better. However, those three analysts, Mike Ditka, Jerry Glanville and Randy Cross, still don’t measure up as a team to Fox Sports’ Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long and Cris Collinsworth. The Fox bunch simply is more dynamic and entertaining.
The Fox show had the usual variety–“weather reporter” Jillian Barberie challenged her record for showing cleavage. Though comedian Jimmy Kimmel usually is a wasted three minutes, give him credit for a segment that included the “He Hate Me” running back from the XFL.
Debut: The surprise award goes to Troy Aikman. Fox Sports President Ed Goren cautioned television critics to remember that Aikman was doing his first regular-season game Sunday, a sign that perhaps he wasn’t expecting much.
Well, Aikman turned in a solid outing during the Bears-Baltimore game. Though he didn’t have the energy of his predecessor, Matt Millen (not many could), he was animated. He also had some good insights, showing he had done his homework.
The only problem early was trying to differentiate between him and fellow analyst Daryl Johnston. But once you get used to their voices, they, along with play-by-play man Dick Stockton, should turn into a good team.
Developing: New Bears play-by-play voice Jeff Joniak still is a work in progress. But with four exhibition games under his belt, he sounded much surer of himself on WBBM-AM 780.
Joniak still tries a bit too hard, which sometimes gets him in trouble. But he is an improvement over Gary Bender. There’s something to be said for constantly being around the team. Joniak clearly knows the Bears better.
Forceout: The saga of Pat Summerall will be interesting to watch during the season. Fox Sports would like Summerall to retire, or at least move aside next year so it can install a new partner (probably Joe Buck) with John Madden.
But Summerall wants to stay on. He is healthy again after undergoing knee-replacement surgery last year. Unlike a couple of years ago, when he regularly made mistakes because of the pain, the 71-year-old Summerall sounds more like his old self again. This could be a sticky situation for Fox.
Late.com: The league did some heavy promotion on its Web site, NFL.com, on Sunday. It wanted fans, especially fantasy league freaks, to go there for the latest scores and statistics.
However, the site was surprisingly and painfully slow in keeping up with the action. For fantasy leaguers, who need to know exactly how many passing yards Peyton Manning has, the site has to be much quicker to respond.
