IT LIKELY has no better chance of happening in 2006 than it did in 2005, but if there’s one New Year’s resolution TV might give a shot it would be to stop treating us as if we’re morons. Please. Stop the pandering. Stop telling us that what we just plainly saw is something completely different.
Or is that too much to ask?
Because bad habits are tough to shake, you can even start slowly. For example, you TV folks should stop telling us that football players were just penalized for “celebrating” when they were penalized for showboating.
And they’ve got to stop telling us that players who slow down before reaching the end zone, were doing so “to celebrate.” We know the difference between celebrating and showboating. And we can see it. Remember: We’re not stupid.
Plaxico Burress, against the Raiders on ESPN, New Year’s Eve, nearly got caught from behind short of the end zone because he slowed down to play it cool, to be a showoff. He wasn’t nearly caught because he “celebrated prematurely,” but because he played the cool fool.
Two days later during the Fiesta Bowl on ABC, Ohio State WR Santonio Holmes was flagged for showboating en route to the end zone. Brent Musburger, who has always treated viewers as if they’re too stupid to know better, then told us several times that Holmes was penalized for “celebrating.”
Holmes had been hit with a personal foul – not for celebrating, but for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Come on, fellas; give it a shot, because it’s worth it. Treat us half as respectfully as you’d treat the biggest creep down there on the field. At least try pretending that we know better, that we saw better – that we’re not that stupid. Can good faith be habit forming? You’ll never know unless you try.
Speaking of mindless pandering, Big Ten image inserts that ran during Bowl games starred a rapper grabbing at his crotch seven, eight times. Yep, this is the image chosen as representative of Northwestern, Indiana, Michigan, Penn State, and all the others.
On-campus and near-campus sexual assaults have become epidemic, and recruited athletes, arriving with inflated senses of entitlement, are daily charged with such crimes. And the Big Ten produces a check-us-out promo proudly displaying a fellow emphasizing his genitals.
What are they thinking? Who scripted this? Who approved this? Or was it designed as a come-on to recruits?
Meanwhile, if a player did that even once in a game, it’s 15 yards and a possible ejection and/or suspension. Good grief.
Guaranteed Winner, Lock of the Year: Mike Francesa, on his Ch. 4 show, addressed the Penn State-Florida State Orange Bowl, declaring that 10-point dog FSU “could keep it a little closer than people think.” Tuesday, on WFAN, Francesa picked Penn St., laying the 10.
Roy Jones Jr., a bad choice from the start, has been dropped as an HBO ringside analyst. It wasn’t only a matter of whether he’d show up prepared, but whether he’d show up. Emmanuel Steward, already an HBO semi-regular, will fill for Jones until HBO decides upon a replacement.
Has there been a worse tout in the history of sports talk radio than Chris Russo’s put-down of Charlie Weis as a “bad choice” two Decembers ago, on the day Weis was named to coach Notre Dame? (A fact that somehow slipped Russo’s mind while chatting with Weis on the air this past season.) One season later, Weis is named College Coach of the Year.
Calling ’em the way you should see ’em: ESPN’s Mike Tirico last Saturday referred to the Giants as “Big Blue.” The Giants, in red and white uniforms, weren’t wearing a stitch of blue.
Unsolved Mysteries: What do TV folks find so attractive in Sterling Sharpe that first led ESPN to make him an NFL studio analyst, and then an NFL game analyst? And now NBC is prepared to announce his hiring as an NFL analyst?
Cablevision has again hiked its monthly rates. Again, the rate increase has coincided with a mailing to subscribers of a pamphlet filled with charts and numbers that indicate a rate decrease. These pamphlets never include a phone number through which one might ask – not that anyone would answer the call – “How can I be paying less when I’m paying more?”
Mike Shedler, Manhattan-based CPA, asks if it’s a nit-pick to note that there should be a comma after the “You” in the “Thank You Fans” that this season appears through the ice in NHL arenas. No, Mike, considering that it’s only three words – words to be read over and over and by millions – it’s not a nit-pick. It should have been correctly punctuated to read, “Thank You, Fans.”
ESPN’s NFL pre-game, last week, slipped into its “this puts everything into perspective” mode in its sensitive treatment of Tony Dungy’s return following the funeral of his son. Now stay tuned for “He Got Jacked Up!” … New Year’s Eve TV coverage from Times Square? Once again, too many crowd shots!
phil.mushnick@nypost.com