Monday Night Football

I'm not a rabid football fan, so I usually just watch the Seahawks play, and they're rarely on Monday Night Football, so I haven't seen it much recently.

But last night, they were on, and I got to watch their patented "fold it up and go home" defense.

That is hardly surprising, and not really worth a post. What I'm writing about is the quality of the commentary. It's really gone downhill since I watched it last. There were three things that stuck in my mind.

  1. Seattle makes in interception, and all they can mention is that it was caught by a safety. I can see the number clearly (but not the name), so it would have been nice to tell me who did it. Nope, two replays, and then to commercial with no mention of the player's name.
  2. A touchdown throw from Testaverde (to Johnson, I believe) looked like it was questionable. Then, ABC nicely showed a reverse angle replay that made is really really clear that the official (who had the same angle) made the right call - it was a touchdown. But they only showed that angle once, and Michaels and Madden went over and over a replay from another angle claiming that it wasn't a touchdown.
  3. Cowboys punt. It's a short punt, and it bounces up and off of the chest of Cowboy in coverage. The official thows his beanbag at the spot. At that point, it's a "free ball" for the Seahawks - they can try to grab it, but if they fumble, they get the ball at the point it was first touched. Michaels and Madden totally miss this and call the ball for the Cowboys, and it takes them about 45 seconds to figure out what has happened.

That's pretty poor. Production isn't great either - the graphics are overblown, and there were at least a couple of times when the montage of previous plays made you miss the start of the next play.