Saying Nothing

Enough! I can’t take it anymore. Watching sports on television has become almost impossible. The games are consumed by over analysis, opinion, insight, and obvious explanation, that has developed into white noise. Now I understand why they torture prisoners by playing round the clock loud music to make them give up information. They are driven to a breaking point by the non-stop noise. That’s what televised games are doing to us. First, there’s the one hour, or even two hour, pre-game show. Five people, usually former players and coaches, led by a sportscaster talking about what they think about the game, the players, the coaches, strengths, weaknesses, and funny highlights. Have you ever sat through “C’mon Man” on ESPN? The same bunch of guys will be back at halftime with highlights and tell you what they thought of the game. Have you ever learned anything from one of those guys?

Now let’s get to the game, if  you can. Cris Collinsworth, Booger McFarland, (one of the most unfortunate nicknames in sports history), Troy Aikman, and, of course, the new golden boy, Tony Romo. Think about it. Can you ever remembered anything anyone of those guy said during a game. Even a few minutes after they said it? No, you can’t, because they never stop talking. Everything has to be explained, or analyzed, or diagramed. It’s as if we’re in another room, and we didn’t see what happened. We have to get a detailed description of the two yard run between the tackles. Then we get the over hyped praise of a player because he made a routine tackle or catch.

The cliches and the strangled syntax are like a toothache that won’t stop throbbing. One of the obvious stories in this Monday night’s game between the Eagles and the Giants was the return of Giants quarterback Eli Manning to the starting lineup after being  benched two games into the season in favor of rookie Daniel Jones. Jones got hurt. Eli was back in. He had a great first half, threw two touchdown passes. McFarland must have said Manning “was turning back the hands of time” three or four times. Manning didn’t turn them back far enough. The Giants came down to earth in the second half, blew a 14 point lead and lost in overtime.

When you really listen to what these guys are saying, there is very little analysis or observation that isn’t obvious. But after every play, they have explain what happened as if the viewer is too dumb to get it. It think this is a product of our society that can’t stop talking, or tweeting, or posting because our attention spans have been short circuited by the instant gratification of the digital age. I’m not saying the tremendous advances we’ve made in technology haven’t benefitted society . When used right, it can educate, illuminate, make our lives easier, and even save lives. All good. But it has also fostered a culture overstimulation. We want it now, faster. But tell me something I don’t know and can’t see. If not, just let us watch the game, and not have to listen to these guys talking and saying nothing.