Week 4 is already upon us. Will the undefeated Bills and Lions continue living in a bizarro world? Will Jon Gruden fall in love with some guy? Will Gus Johnson miraculously make a game between two 0-3 teams worth watching? Who knows?
Your latest Pammy awards update is here along with the Week 4 standings. America's least favorite analyst Craig James was undoubtedly the star of the week. Even though he didn't get the top spot, the Senator racked up 17 points to double his season total thanks to three Top 10 quotes this week. Jenn Brown's unfortunate slip was just good enough for second place this week. But as the name suggests, the Pammies are all about the one and only Pam Ward - she nabs the top spot for the third week out of four this season. The envelope please...
10) "San Diego State finally breaks the seal here at the Big House." - Eric Collins after SDSU scored their first TD. (via SBisho12)
9) "Braxton Miller is like Barry Sanders" - Craig James (via sctvman)
8) "LSU plays grown man football. If you have any Hello Kitty in you, they're gonna bring it out of you." - Desmond Howard (via CaptTouchback)
7) "And... Incomplete... And INTERCEPTED... No... EDDIE POOLE? EDDIE POOLE?! EDDIE POOLE CAUGHT IT?! UNBELIEVABLE! HOW IN THE WORLD DID HE GRAB THIS ONE?!" - Mike Morgan (VIDEO)
6) "He comes in the backdoor." - Gary Danielson (via AndyO)
5) "If you're not conditioned, guys will start to suck... suck air." - Matt Millen (via tedemrich)
4) "Cincinnati has to have a coming out party tonight for Butch Jones." - Craig James (via Sctvman)
3) "The Big 12 has everything going their way" - Craig James (via sctvman)
2) "I caught up with Bitch... Butch Jones coming out of the half." - Jenn Brown (VIDEO)
1) "2 of the last 3 Central Michigan passes have been intercepted. The last one for an interception." - Pam Ward (via SBisho12)
Week 4 Top 5 -
1) Pam Ward 38 pts
2) Craig James 34 pts
3) Matt Millen 20 pts
4) Gary Danielson 16 pts,
5) Beth Mowins 13 pts
Others receiving votes - T6) Artrell Hawkins 9 pts, Warrick Dunn 9 pts, Dan Hawkins 9 pts, Jenn Brown 9 pts, 10) Sean McDonogh 8 pts, T11) Wendi Nix 7 pts, Steve Martin 7 pts, Tom Cole 7 pts, 14) Lou Holtz 6 pts, 15) Andre Ware 5 pts, T16) Alex Flanagan 4 pts, Mike Morgan 4 pts, T18) Joe Tiller 3 pts, Keith Jones 3 pts, Desmond Howard 3 pts, T21) Danny Kanell 2 pts, Jesse Palmer 2 pts, T23) Kevin Kugler 1 pt, Eric Collins 1 pt.
The Full Week 5 Announcing Schedule will be coming soon, where you can find the dates and times of games and all the announcing pairings as well. Then, make sure you check back every Saturday for the Pam Ward Chronicles and another week of the Pammies!
Midfielder Jone Samuelsen from Norwegian club Odd Grenland (awesome name) scored what is thought to be the longest header in the history of soccer last weekend. With Odd leading Tromso 2-1 entering into injury time on Sunday, the Tromso keeper came forward on a corner kick. This created the opportunity for Samuelsen to do something that nobody has ever seen before. As the ball was pinballed around the midfield, Samuelsen launched a header that somehow reached the goalline. According to the Odd manager, Samuelsen's header went 57.3 meters. I can barely run that far, let alone head a soccer ball. Of course, the video is accompanied by what I assume to be a great and very excited call in Norwegian.
With home field advantage for the divisional series of the playoffs still on the line, the Diamondbacks turned toward their lucky charm Micah Owings in the top of the 10th inning vs. the Dodgers. Sure, he gave up five runs and all but guaranteed a loss, but more astute and optimistic observers knew he hadn't lost a game yet this season (7-0) and it wasn't about to happen Tuesday night.
Roberts managed to throw in a Kirk Gibson famous home run trot imitation while jogging around the bases and took off his jersey before getting mauled at home plate. Diamondbacks' announcer Daron Sutton couldn't believe anything before his eyes, so much that he asked Milwaukee for confirmation.
The D-Backs trail the Brew Crew by a game for home field.
With so much evil going on in Bristol these days, it really doesn't seem that far-fetched that Darth Vader might be roaming the hallways at the WWL. Well, here he is applying makeup to Robert Flores on SportsCenter this afternoon. Flores even throws in a couple jokes that would make Bania proud as well.
John Lackey's terrible season for the Boston Red Sox just got a lot worse. His 6.14 ERA, -1.2 WAR, three starts out of 28 taken into the 8th inning, 203 hits in 160 innings, and 15 million dollar salary was bad enough. The numbers alone paint the picture of one of the biggest disasters to take a baseball field since these. Late Sunday night, Lackey's troubles went beyond the diamond to a whole new level. Gossip site TMZ reported he was divorcing his wife Krista, who just happens to be battling breast cancer at the moment.
Before TMZ posted the story, Lackey lashed out at the media after his Sunday start in an extra innings Red Sox win. He blamed "one of you in the media" for sending him a text about a personal situation before the game. Video of Lackey's incredibly awkward postgame press conference below...
With the news of Lackey's divorce, his popularity and likeability factor is already taking a massive hit, if it wasn't low enough to begin with. Any headline involving a separation or scandal with a cancer stricken wife is a death blow to your public image. Just ask this guy.
Does John Lackey have a point though? Can't he just be criticized solely on his crappiness as a pitcher and not his supposed crappiness as a human being...
There are a handful of high end amenities and utilities that once you use, you can never go back. Nobody makes the decision to go back to dial-up internet, those with air conditioning typically become lifers, and in that same vein once you get a taste of the Sunday Ticket and/or the RedZone channel, chances are that you're going to have a hard time watching the NFL any other way.
With millions now consuming copious amounts of football via NFL RedZone and The RedZone Channel (for all intents and purposes the same thing), the New York Times ran a nice feature on the popularity of the channels. It was your basic "Hey America, you didn't know about this? Well let me tell you all about it..." type of feature.
A lot of the feature was old information repackaged with some fresh quotes, but the part that really interested me was the story about the initial inspiration for the channel. Fox's Eric Shanks gets the credit for importing the idea from Italy where he was visiting working on a business deal...
I'm not a guy that necessarily wants to make fun of people for one little typo... wait a sec, of course I am!
One would think a person who portrays themselves as the most notable and passionate Boston sports fan on the planet would theoretically be careful to be correct in what he says regarding said Boston sports teams. One would also think ESPN's most popular writer, Bill Simmons (a man with almost 1.5 million Twitter followers), would want to double check the info he's pumping out on a regular basis. Finally, one would think a tweet observing the "high comedy" of a misspelled tattoo (is it really that hilarious?) would not mistake a Bruins player for an ESPN New York writer. And yet, Bill Simmons passed none of those tests Monday.
You see, Andrew Marchand is a senior writer at ESPN New York. Brad Marchand is the Bruins player that had "Stanley Cup Champians" temporarily tattooed on his arm body. How Simmons got the two confused is a bit perplexing, unless it was a conspiracy from the Bristol overlords to feed more page views to their regional sites. Seriously, why else would we ever link to ESPN New York? Simmons fessed up to the gaffe minutes later...
Usually a tweeting snafu of this order wouldn't be worthy of a second glance, but this isn't the first time The Sports Guy has come under fire for his lack of attention to detail regarding the Bruins. During the Stanley Cup Playoffs, he called Rich Peverley "Patrick Beverly." He was also called out as an obvious bandwagon fan when he suddenly showed up with ice level seats wearing a snappy Bruins sweatshirt during the playoffs.
Simmons does seem to have more than his fair share of typos and factual errors in his columns (see Deadspin's Grantland correction desk). And yet, his history of errors regarding the Bruins cut deeper than others. it seems that Bruins fans hold a special sort of grudge against Bill Simmons for jumping on the B's bandwagon like he was Blake Griffin leaping over a midsized sedan. Simmons has fallen all over himself gushing about his Boston persona - penning column after column about the Red Sox, Celtics, and Patriots over the years. Hockey was rarely even on his radar. All it took was a Stanley Cup championship to get the Sports Guy fully on board with the Bruins. The transparent, fake, Speidi-like nature of it all likely gave serious Bruins fans this reaction. (There's your obligatory Simmonsesque pop culture reference.)
With his latest snafu, Bill Simmons would appear to have even more work to do to patch up his standing with Bruins fans. The whole Bruins fans vs Bill Simmons dynamic is ironic coming from someone who has made millions of dollars off his reputation as a hardcore Boston sports fan and once wrote this:
There's nothing worse than a Bandwagon Jumper. If sports were a prison and sports fans made up all the prisoners, the Bandwagon Jumpers would be like the child molesters -- everyone else would pick on them, take turns beating them up and force them to toss more salads than Emeril Lagasse.
Who needs perspective? 22-of-37, 250 yards, one touchdown, one interception, and one fumble vs. 22-of-36, 255 yards, one interception, and three fumbles.
The second stat line, believe Phil Costa or not, belongs to Tony Romo and the first belongs to Redskins' QB Rex Grossman. However, the amount of Tony Romo tongue bathing that went on would've left you thinking Romo was playing the most inspired game of his life with a heavy heart while Rex Grossman was, well, Rex Grossman.
This Tony Romo guy did it all, though, despite having broken ribs. Oh, yeah, did you know Romo was playing with broken ribs (which were protected by inpenetrable Dendra armour) ... and that he's just so gosh-darn likable? On one play down the stretch, Tony Romo apparently completed a miracle pass in spite of his stupid offensive linemen and simultaneously volunteered at a soup kitchen. What a guy, this guy. In the end, somehow a Week 3 win in which "Tony" -- as Gruden so affectionately called him all game -- failed to throw a single touchdown pass, was his greatest win of his career. Look, I don't mind Tony Romo as a quarterback -- there's been 23 Lions teams in my 26-year life I would have loved to have him 'backing -- but I was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable Monday night.
Dan Steinberg of D.C. Sports Blog, who may have been a tad bitter seeing as his team just lost a heartbreaker, thought it was a bit much, too:
I wish I had the Gruden and Jaworski quotes handy, but if you were watching, you probably have some sense of what they were saying. Actually, they may have been singing Hosannas rather than strictly speaking. Or just kneeling and weeping.
“Mike, Tony Romo has DONE! HIS! JOB! What a MEMORABLE evening by Tony Romo. He’s been getting hit all night, he’s had bad snaps all night, he’s got rookie wide receivers making mistakes, all kinds of errors on the offensive line, with a broken rib, fourth quarter, he takes his team DOWN the field, converts a third-and-21 on an electrifying play, moving around, allowing Dez Bryant to open up. Romo, WOW, so far.”
Yup. Eighteen memorable points. Six memorable field goals. One memorable floating interception. Several memorable mean faces at his teammates for screwing up.
On that Dez Bryant play, I think it was Jaws who said, "it was all Tony Romo ... absolutely." Forget it that Bryant -- who wasn't playing at full strength, either -- didn't give up on the play and got away from his defender, caught the ball, and ran for an extra 10 or so yards after the catch. Nope, all Romo. Romo to Romo.
Marty is covered by a DB at least eight inches shorter than him. Rather than throw a jump ball, Romo tries to drill it in Bennett’s chest.
SPIN IT JAWS: “Martellus Bennett simply has to anticipate that his quarterback is suffering from a rib injury and is therefore unlikely to get the ball where it needs to be. Disappointing effort there by the tight end.”
Of course, the Pammies are our lifeblood during the Fall and our focus largely resides with your feedback for college football. The Pammies have a steep history here at AA, but we receive just as many tweets from you on NFL Sundays that we do on college football Saturdays. So, what better way to provide a weekly dose of the best NFL quotes than by one of our favorite series at AA - Real Tweets from Real People. Al Michaels is already creepily excited. Each week, we'll spotlight a few NFL announcers (mostly Dick Stockton) and some of the best zingers from around Twitter. As always, these are Real Tweets from Real People...
#Dick Stockton (Lions vs Vikings)
Dascenzo Dick Stockton jukes from one sentence to another like Barry Sanders in his prime. jpcadorin Good news: The Vikings aren't panicking up 3-0, 7 minutes in to the game. Really Dick Stockton? joshfrank@awfulannouncing another Dick Stockton gem was when he announced Ndamakung Suh as ndamakung Kuhn in pregame Kyle_R_Dufrane@awfulannouncing I assume you don't bother tweeting about how consistently horrible Dick Stockton is because you only have 140 characters? vlamb24@awfulannouncing Dick Stockton called Stafford Jason Hanson...too bad the Lions weren't punting. myguythetorg Dick Stockton has no clue what he is saying. A 1st and 5 is 3rd and long and minnesota is 2 and 0? Take ur meds Dick BKibbs Dick Stockton said that the Eagles were "America's Team when the season started." I'm sorry, Dick, what America do you live in? Detroit4lyfe According to Dick Stockton, the Lions defense has held the Lions offense to 2 field goals today.
#Jim Mora (Bengals vs 49ers)
BASportsGuy Great how Fox shows the worst possible angle on that illegal touching replay, and Jim Mora praises the amazing camerawork. yougomango Jim Mora Jr is like, um, the worst color guy I've ever heard maybe?? mikekiessel If the 49ers Bengal game was played in my backyard I wouldn't open drapes. If Jim Mora was here to announce I'd call cops for tresspassing greebs "There might be some frustrated #49ers fans watching right now..." Jim Mora. Get this guy a Peabody! @awfulannouncing greebs Alex Smith throws the ball five feet over Joshua Morgan's head. "That's an accuracy issue there, Ron" says Jim Mora. Thanks, Jim.
#Dan Dierdorf (Texans vs Saints)
msthierry110 "Defeat, thy name is field goal"...Dan Dierdorf awfulannouncing Dan Dierdorf just made reference to "Texans Nation." In other news, I just vomited. Chris_Hill_ If Dan Dierdorf got attacked by a badger I would probably have a good laugh. djbmilk "Brees is such a competitor. He would chew his own leg off to get a win. He's probably eating himself from the inside right now" Dan Dierdorf awfulannouncing By the way, I wanted to tweet all Dan Dierdorf's food references during the Saints game today, but it would have put Twitter over capacity.
#Joe Buck & Troy Aikman (Bears vs Packers)
Pat_Armitage Will Joe Buck raise his voice at all this afternoon? That is the question. The NFL announcing equivalent of Ben Stein. CC:@awfulannouncing ThaSportsChick if Joe Buck HAS to be a commentator for a sport, why cant it be snooker or really bad hunting shows, you know, something i can turn off. nsatts52 Troy Aikman has to be one of the worst color men in all of sports right now. He is brutal to listen to, which makes Joe Buck even worse too twhurt The worst thing about being a fan of the best team in the NFL is that Joe Buck will call most of your games. poopd1ck Joe Buck has the charisma of a dead fly.
#Brian Billick (Bucs vs Falcons)
JohnLiotta What does "runs angry after the catch" even mean, Brian Billick? @awfulannouncing Also just said: "We'd be dog cussing Matt Ryan." Kayne_Gibson@awfulannouncing Billick after Josh Freeman QB sneak for td: "Let the big guy just shove it in." aphoward13 Someone needs to explain the helmet-to-helmet rule to Brian Billick. Brennaman knows it better @awfulannouncing AllSnark "Once again, I fail terribly as an official" - Brian Billick. Truer words never spoken @awfulannouncing lawlornfl Brian Billick is painfully bad as an announcer. He's full of wrong info.
#Cris Collinsworth (Steelers vs Colts)
bjo109@awfulannouncing collinsworth: "since painter's lifetime qb rating is close to 10, that's not good." thanks cris.. ashlii0203 "He drops as many balls as anyone in the league." - Cris Collinsworth @awfulannouncing AllSnark "There's only a handful of guys that can do what Peyton Manning can do." - Cris Collinsworth @awfulannouncing Steelers vs Colts
#Other Games
ERuss24@awfulannouncing can we nominate Curt Menafee for thanking "Hugh Jackson" for doing the opening for Fox NFL this week? FontibonCeez@awfulannouncing Siragusa just compared McCoy to Barry Sanders - you kidding me!? Got_Next@awfulannouncing John Lynch is all over the place tonight; talking about Marino Rivera and ish. Get him outta the booth. wchandlerparker@awfulannouncing whoever the analyst is on the jags/panthers game has been beyond awful today [It was Steve Beuerlein] ProfessorDrew That's right, Daryl Johnston, generally when guys can't tackle it makes them poor tacklers @awfulannouncing bobbyd1222@awfulannouncing if English had no S's or th's Shannon Sharpe would be HOF material. But, alas...
