Welcome to [DFO] “Hate Week” – A Monday Primer & Initial Rant

^{(As a brief aside, a big shout-out to Low Commander for his annual & delightful help with the photoshops.)}

Hi everyone,

I’m Beerguyrob.

I’ve been away for a while, recuperating from rotator cuff surgery. And in between hydromorphone tablets I have been trying to figure out how to ease back into my routines. One component of that is working on my typing, and what better place to practice than [DFO]?

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, [DFO] Hate Week dates back to 2017, a much simpler time when Tom Brady was still a Patriot, the Atlanta Falcons were coached by a defensive genius in Dan Quinn, and the game was being held in Houston – home of the Texans & coach Bill O’Brien, whose 9-7 record led by QB Brock Osweiler won them the AFC South for a second year in a row.

The idea behind Hate Week was simple – FUCK ‘EM ALL!

Did they deserve it?

Hells yeah! The proof was in the choke job.

Each year since, we take different aspects of what’s occurred in the league during the season & empty our spleens in vented, justified rage. None are spared; none are sacred.

Therefore, we begin the dance anew – tonight’s topic: The NFL Media.

There are many types of NFL media. There are your lead play-by-play clowns,

and the in-studio chucklefucks.

How we survive that each Sunday is a miracle. Just to even get to the games you have to suffer through a minimum of one hour of in-studio ‘jock-ularity’, a supposed dose of infotainment meant to help us appreciate the upcoming games but really serves to test the mettle of the average viewer for what was to come.

^{Week 3 was especially trying.}

And then there are the play-by-play announcers. Of the three I pictured above – the #1 team per network – Joe & Troy are just getting by on their celebrity, Nantz has CLEARLY given up on Romo’s “kid touching his first boob” energy, and Al relishes the 37 seconds he has to himself before Collinsowrth slides up beside him like a predator at a bar.

But my ire tonight is reserved for the folks we don’t see once per week. Tonight, my focus is on the people who populate the NFL Network.

Having never lived in the Soviet Union, I have to imagine that Moscow’s Central Television Station’s faithful slobbering all over the good news from the Kremlin provided a precedent for the fine folks at “Good Morning Football”. Here is their broadcast from the day after Championship Sunday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeHIU5–tiw

Jesus. That’s already enough Tom Brady for me. “OH MY GOD!! How does he do it?!” It’s gotten to the point that I have actually deleted NFL Network from my channel guide for three weeks, because I just… can’t with all this slavering. Let’s take a look at each one of these people:

Nate Burleson

He gets a small pass because he’s a good Canadian kid. Plus, his old man Al played college at U-Dub & professionally for the Stampeders,

during my formative years. Growing up in Vancouver & without cable, the Huskies were one of the few college teams I could follow. Al never made the NFL, getting as close as the LA Express in 1983. Nate, however, played 11 seasons in the NFL.

Of the four GMFB cast members, Burleson is the least offensive because he at least played in the pros & brings that aura of credibility to the broadcast. He loses points because he double-dips as a part-time talking head on “The NFL Today”, and his constant overuse of “TOE DRAG SWAG!” is clearly his attempt to gain a meme foothold alongside his former Vikings teammate Randy Moss. But at least he knows how to deliver a pizza.

Kyle Brandt

Mostly famous for being the guy who screened Jim Rome’s calls for the better half of the ‘teens, he also spent five years on “Days Of Our Lives” prior to getting into the jungle. His job is to be the sober yang to Schrager’s manic yin. He has his sources & does his research – clearly the one good thing about Rome’s show is the background prep. Whenever he opens his mouth on a topic, he usually knows what he’s talking about. He played football in college – Princeton – and his football bona fides come from the fact his grandfather Gil was the Cowboys Player personnel director from 1960-89. When Rome had his TV show, Brandt was both a producer & on-air as an interviewer, and this was what got him noticed at NFL Network. Mostly, he’s the pretty boy that rounds out the cast.

He’s actually the least offensive of the four, but ranks lower than Burleson because of his birth certificate. Also, he loses marks for being part of the 2020 Bills Mafia playoff hype videos.

Kay Adams

This is where we start to get into “personality” as “branding”. Her fame came from being a host of fantasy football shows on both Sirius XM & DirecTV in the early 2010s, after graduating from Mizzou with a Communication degree. She then was able to move over to NBCSN to be a reporter, fantasy football expert, and work on shows with Michelle Beadle.

She has been the “host” of “Good Morning Football” since its inception in 2016.

She still hosts DirecTV’s “Fantasy Zone” during the season, and produces videos highlighting her weekly picks.

I realize her job as a fantasy analyst is to hype up who is good & who isn’t, but that conflicts with her job as an NFL pitch-person that is supposed to make each player sound like a valuable piece of the equation. So instead of analyzing, say, Evan Engram as a pass-dropping piece of shit, he becomes “a valuable member of Daniel’s Jones’ receiving corps”, even though he registers negative points. In that respect she’s every girl I met in college – “looks don’t matter” until you ask them out.

Peter Schrager

The Bradshaw of the group, he seems to be the comic relief of the show, despite being the longest-serving “journalist” on the program. Also, because he never played football (that I can find), he seems to be the one to take the random ‘shots across the bow’ at “tradition”, because he’s the regular guy who doesn’t understand why something is the way it is. “Contrarian” as an employable skill. But, his main job is to sit at the end of the table & retweet what Adam Schefter reports.

Have you ever been to England & watched the “chat shows”, and noticed there’s a certain group of people whose sole job seems to be sitting in on other talk shows? And they all seem to rotate between the same five shows? That’s Schrager! He started at FS1, which led to him being on Cowherd’s show.

That led to getting sideline access during games, which then led to him joining the first hour of FOX’s pregame show. For cross-branding purposes, that’s why he was hired for NFL Network, and represents the other major broadcaster on the GMFB panel.

• Burleson = CBS;
• Schrager = FOX;
• Adams = NBC.

Network parity!

———————————————–

Honestly, on their own they are probably perfectly fine people. But I don’t know them that way. I know them as the four yammering idiots I have to mute every morning when I turn on the sports to see what happened after I fell asleep.

They are the epitome of what is wrong with sports broadcasting today – the manic need to fill time by turning 45 minutes of highlights into a three-hour show. I especially enjoy the “guests” they have on, all of whom appear to carry the aura of the Stockholm Syndrome about them because only Marshawn Lynch can make “I’m just here so I don’t get fined” compelling.

If you are summoned to the show, you have to appear. All NFL contracts have media availability as a core component, and the NFL Network is a core component of that necessity. People want to talk to Al Michaels; they have to talk to Good Morning Football. Just look at this self-indulgent bullshit from a regular participant in “Hate Week”,

Picturing Brady watching @GMFB as I pick apart the TB12 method and question his arm strength. Hello, Tom. https://t.co/1RefT8zG5r

— Peter Schrager (@PSchrags) February 1, 2021

Which, naturally, leads to the circlejerking by fellow “industry insiders”.

And therein lies my aggravation with the whole process. It’s nothing but forced interviews being trimmed & turned into “content”, which then becomes it’s own programming. BE FUCKING ORIGINAL! My hatred for this show fits in perfectly with “Hate Week”, because the very concept of the NFL having an NFL Network that NFL players are forced to be on (or face financial penalty) is pure Big Brother, and is why this channel stays muted until the Draft.