How to fix boring NFL pregame shows and make them watchable

I would sit them together, talk to them to present something both free and worthy of attention and lasting memory.

I would send a team to go after veteran NFL referee Carl Paganelli, a federal probation officer. You wouldn’t look at that compared to six guys talking about where the Bears rank against the run after Week 2, then threatening/warning us with, “We’re going to go back in half”?

How about a weekly special to identify and interview the most humble, team-first, polite young gentleman on each team for the interests of the future and rooting for civilized viewers who have no great interest in gambling?

Once the games begin, the network can return its focus, live and in replay, to those more eager to degrade their sport with postgame debauchery for the attention that now, for some sustained indiscretions, TV warrants.

And the end of each show would include the “Funniest Celebration of the Week.” Sunday would highlight the Browns’ defense, last week against the Giants, rallying in the end zone to perform a practiced celebration — that’s what today’s pros now practice during practice — after a TD that was called back for a penalty in the same defense.

And I’ll close with a chart showing the final score: the 0-2 Giants beat the favored Browns, 21-15, in Cleveland.

Hey, so many players are now so eager to embarrass their sport? Jump back a bit into their path. What’s the worst that can come of it? Who knows, it might even discourage the networks from easing their habit of hiring the NFL’s worst recently retired misanthropes from populating their cable shows to make them as insufferable as their pregame shows.

As for the transparently forced, belly-flopping laughs that have become a 20-year condition within pregame shows, I’d give the well-aimed cattle a shot. And who wouldn’t go out of their way to see that?

880 AM has only become a hype machine for ESPN

Predictably, ESPN Radio NY’s move to 880 AM, formerly rated News Radio 880, has been loaded with ESPN promotions — sell — presented as content.

Of course, docile, fragile psyche Michael “Don’t call me a shill” Kay is further reduced to a con man, his honest and insecure co-hosts Don La Greca and Peter Rosenberg are linked to a copy of the plan .

On Thursday, I randomly tried it, tuning into the Kay Show before Cowboys-Giants to hear if Kay and Bad Company’s guest had an ESPN plug. Bingo! The guest was former Giants quarterback Justin Tuck. Not a bad idea, until Kay, as a matter of business, revealed the reason for Tuck’s presence:

Tuck, too, is an ESPN show host. No ESPN, no Tuck. Bingo!

Then again, by now we know the outcome: It’s all a hoax. But don’t call Kay a shill!

Do advertisers really believe that viewers will be swayed into buying whatever Deion Sanders endorses when it can cause the opposite? Most, by now, wouldn’t trust Coach Slime with an empty envelope.

I still can’t understand why NFL players, weekly and very often permanently lost to concussions, continue to toast their teammates by slapping or headbutting them in the helmet.

If I were a color analyst, and given that many viewers also can’t figure it out, I’d at least mention it.

Reader Joe Shepherd on Nike rep Rob Manfred: “Nothing says Red Sox like a yellow and blue Clarabell Clown suit. And that’s what they are: suits, not uniforms.”

UNC paid James Madison €500 to beat them at home for “bowl eligibility” credit, then lost last week in a low-blood pressure finale, 70-50.

Where are all the green college students to protest when they have a tangible, provable and worthy cause to support?

Because money can move continents, Stanford University of California is now a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference. The current schedule includes games, home or away, at Clemson, Syracuse, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest. There is also a game against Louisville, now an ACC “college”.

The costs of transportation money and fuel to play football games are huge. So is the silence from environmentally sensitive student protesters. Oh, good.

Analysts are not worth all that money

So as Week 4 rolls around, you’d think there’s someone up at Fox regretting signing Tom Brady for $375 million. If he equals — and he’d be the first in history compared to the game, but he’s not — he’s for those drawn to pedestrian commentary and hungry for knowledge.

Of course, few if any sports network production executives would know right from wrong.

CBS’s Tony Romo, who I still feel isn’t all that bad—he occasionally makes me laugh, and occasionally sees and accurately says what’s coming—is still paid an embarrassing $180 million, while CBS/ Paramount is in the midst of massive events. layoffs.

I can’t wait to get Venus Williams’ new self-help book on integrity, trustworthiness, and personal health.

I’m sure there’s a chapter on Doug Adler, who suffered a heart attack, lost his career and his reputation after being improperly accused of calling Williams “a gorilla” on ESPN.

Williams was given an opportunity to defend Adler, to correct the misunderstanding, and she dismissed the case as trivial, allowing an innocent human being to be destroyed by a lie.

Question of the week: ESPN sideline reporter Laura Rutledge after Monday’s Bills 47, Jags 10, asked Buffalo QB Josh Allen, “How would you describe the offensive performance tonight?”

How much better would Kirk Herbstreit be if he chose silence over empty clichés? Thursday night, during Cowboys-Giants, he killed space and time with “not on the same page,” “Need to dial up a play, here” and the need to “run down the hill” junk-speak.

CBS college football’s top duo of Brad Nessler and Gary Danielson are good enough and by now should be confident enough to call players, many now NIL pros, on counterproductive misconduct, all to me, after the game.

Again, the modern sports media avoids offending those who are most offensive, choosing instead to offend their own audience.

In less than three hours Thursday, as seen on YES, the Yankees’ Austin Wells was named Man of the Week. He took such a beating behind the plate an umpire would have stopped the fight. And to think that MLB players at 20 times Wells’ $750 apiece can’t be bothered to run to first.