Sport Announcers

OK, I know there are a lot of blog out there specifically dedicated to the malapropisms and idiocy of announcers on sporting events, but I've heard two comments this weekend that others might have missed. The first comment displayed a lack of understanding of the rules of football.

I was listening to part of the Iowa vs. Northwestern game on the radio on Saturday. I turned on the radio in time to hear announcer one say "and while they're out helping their injured player, Iowa takes a timeout." Announcer one and Eddie George then got into an extended conversation about whether or not the injured player would have to leave the game. Eddie said, "he'll have to leave for at least one play." He would be right, except that Iowa called a time out. They called a timeout when they had no reason to, except that they didn't want to take the player out of the game. George was confused about how Iowa got away with it when the injured Iowa player didn't leave the game. He said, "back when I was in the league, he would have had to go out for at least one play." Two things, he was applying an NFL rule to NCAA football and two he got the rule wrong. In both leagues the rule is the same, if you call a timeout, you can leave the player in.

The other comment was tonight during the Steelers - Broncos game. The announcer was commenting on how well Ty Law - a recent signing by Denver - was doing covering the Pittsburgh receivers. He said that Law was doing well coming out of temporary retirement playing in altitude and for "never playing the nickle position before." I know that players, especially in the NFL are more and more specialized, but he's a corner back by training, being asked to do what cornerbacks do - cover a wide receiver. He wasn't even being asked to do it in an especially complicated coverage. The Broncos were running man coverage underneath with two safeties playing deep halves over the top behind them. So Law's job was to cover the Steeler's #3 receiver man to man with help. Um, I know he's old for a football player (but not overly so) and he's playing his first game of the season, but come on, he's doing exactly what he used do at an all-pro caliber level. In defense of whichever announcer made the comment, it did seem that he was trying to play up Law's newness to the Broncos and bring up something that people might not know about the difficulties Law might be facing at altitude but the main point that came across was that Law was playing a new position.