Last night I had the pleasure of watching the J.E.T.S, Jets! Jets! Jets! beat the Dolphins on ESPN’s Monday Night Football. What a game! In a season where it seams any team can pull off an upset, it was nice to see the Jets win, leaving them one win away from making the playoffs. Add the fact their last game is against the Raiders and one can only hope the Jets can win a game they are supposed to win with the playoffs on the line. The Raiders don’t have much to play for at this point as they are 2-13 and trying their best to get the first pick in the draft.

Now, this is something I decided not to write about yesterday due to it being Christmas and not wanting to be negative on a holiday, so I’m going to let it all out today. How idiotic are the Monday Night Football announcers?! I’ve only watched a few Monday night games, and usually only bits and pieces, so I haven’t been able to form an opinion on them for the most part during the season. However, last night was more than enough to hope they change the lineup for next year.

First of all, they spent the whole game ripping on Pennington and his “weak” arm. It’s like they let some cat out of the bag or something. Hello! Any football fan worth his weight in salt has known this for years. To spend the first 58 minutes of the game talking about it was ridiculous. Try bringing some new concepts to the table. Then, as he brings the team back for a win, to turn around and praise him for his “smarts” and say he should be “comeback player of the year” is a disgrace. I mean, make up your minds. How about this Theisman and Kornheiser, I’ll take your “weak arm” and raise you 9 WINS (plus one more expected next week against the lowly Raiders). There are a lot of QB’s in the league that have a stronger arms than Pennington, but how many are about to make the playoffs. Add the fact that if a strong arm is all that is needed to play football, Browning Nagle would be well on his way to a Hall of Fame career with the Jets. Most people probably don’t know Nagle, but he was drafted in the second round in 1991, right after Brett Favre, and was heralded for his bullet passes. That turned out to be a huge mistake.

My next critique of the MNF crew has nothing to do with the Jets, actually, it has nothing to do with the game at all. And that’s the problem. Instead of analyzing the game that was being played, they spent half a quarter talking about Dolphins head coach Nick Saban and his constant denial that he will leave to go coach college football. Give me a break, Saban has done everything he can to deny any rumors that he will leave the Dolphins, but ESPN keeps bringing it up. Then, they comment that through all the denials by Saban, the rumors still persist. Again, hello! That’s because the media keeps bringing it up. Of course it’s going to continue if you keep talking about it! How about concentrating on the game being played and not on the rumor mill?!

And finally, my last critique. When players get hurt after being drilled helmet to helmet, stand up and say something about. Don’t fall into the “there was no penalty called, so it was a hard, clean hit” idea. And then, DON’T go to commercial leaving everyone in the dark as the player is laying on the ground! This is a great opportunity to analyze the play.

In the end, what ever happened to announcers that could actually fill space with smart and interesting comments regarding the teams and the game being played. But then again, the Jets won so things aren’t so bad.

J… E… T… S… Jets! Jets! Jets!