“A lot of painful things happening in this game” quipped Chris Collinsworth near the end of the third quarter; and he was right on numerous levels. Having just returned from a professional hockey game, I had received my fill of unnecessary carnage; or that’s what I thought. A horrific injury marked a football game that was incredibly physical, and at times sloppy, between two AFC East division rivals.
What made the third quarter injury to Ellis Hobbs (who turned out to be okay after being carried off the field on a stretcher) interesting from a technical standpoint is the way NBC handled the commercials while he was being attended to on the field. As most avid football fans know, the commercial breaks in NFL games are incredibly structured. So something like a player injured on the field for ten minutes throws a wrench in a usually smooth machine. As a result, we were treated with three commercial breaks before Hobbs was hauled off of the field; on a lighter note, I’m now seriously thinking about picking up a Lexus soon.
The injury also brought sideline reporter Andrea Kramer intro relevance for a time other than the half-time report. She’s a great reporter; very matter of fact and doesn’t subdue viewers with an inordinate amount of fluff in her reporting. In the same note, Kramer is not terribly memorable, either. I mean, she’s an effective reporter, but doesn’t quite leave the same impression as Erin Andrews, who is equally effective but a bit flashier.
In many ways, that optimizes the essence of Sunday Night Football. It’s not as flashy or hip as ESPN’s Monday Night Football; but it has had a lot of success doing what it does at the level it does it. Simply effective - I kind of like that. From the older-but-wiser Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth to the old school country music intro, Sunday Night Football isn’t a cliche, it made everything like it a cliche.
Don’t mistake Sunday Night Football’s consistency for perfection; for instance, I am tremendously tired of seeing the same teams play on this program over and over again. This is the second time this season that the New York Giants have been featured on Sunday Night Football, and the same is true for the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles will be playing on Sunday Night Football again in a few weeks; in fact, there will be at least one team every week that is a repeat performer on Sunday Night Football this season. As a sports fan, I find that incredibly disappointing. That just shows differing goals - I want to see a representation of most, if not all, of the teams in the NFL; and Sunday Night Football’s producers want a lot of viewers. Those aren’t incompatible goals, but it certainly feels that way sometimes.
Much like Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN, Sunday Night Football gets stuck in a Colts, Giants, Steelers, Patriots, Eagles rut; and I just don’t see that changing anytime in the near future. In fact, that’s the biggest problem with the entire program - nothing changes, ever. It’s fitting that the greatest strength of Sunday Night Football is also its’ greatest weakness. On the bright side, it also means we as the viewers are treated to some of the best teams in football week in and week out, which is by no means a bad thing. Would I like to see more of the Ravens, Falcons, and Cardinals? Sure. Does the casual football fan? Well… I’m sure the producers of Sunday Night Football know something that I don’t.
