Mister Defense Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 (edited) This was possibly the worst performance by a network broadcasting team of an NFL game that I have ever seen. Like many Bills fans I was watching the Bills/Lions game to see how individual players performed. But good luck doing so last night! Lazy, unprepared Gumbel almost never mentioned the Bills defensive players who made the plays. This became increasingly clear to me as I watched the tape of the game late last night. So in the second half I started keeping track of how often he did this. By late in the fourth quarter Gumbel, paid millions to be a play by play broadcaster, had stated the name of the Bills defensive players 3-4 times in the entire second half!, mainly for sacks or almost sacks--almost nothing else. Without a current roster with me, and almost no replays of the defensive plays, I had no idea who was involved--on almost every play. And Green was no better, almost never even commenting on the play after. Not on the player, not on the play call, just general BS from him. Immensely unprepared. The same lack of detail, lack of preparedness and professionalism, was apparent in all aspects of this very lazy broadcast. They almost never looked beyond the VERY broad outcome of the play on either defense or offense, almost never getting close to the details of what actually happened on the plays. This lack of preparation and competence was just as clear in their complete lack of knowledge of almost all that has happened in training camp on either team--almost zero on the individual players, their stories, and how things have progressed. Or how they may turn out. I think Tasker and Catalano have been doing a pretty solid job on the preseason broadcasts, especially in the Panthers game. So I was shocked at how awful Gumbel and Green did last night. This is their job, what they should be doing all week to prepare, but clearly Gumbel and Green did almost no prep work, and worse, seemed to care almost nothing about this important 3rd preseason game. They, and their producer/director, should all be held accountable. Did others notice these same things from this dynamic duo? Edited August 24, 2019 by Mister Defense 3 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris heff Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 Watching the pre-game I thought Gumbel was drunk. 1 5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LABILLBACKER Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 Agreed, they went through the motions as broadcasters. Kinda like Trent Murphy..... 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coloradobillsfan Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 maybe this is a good time to remind those with center channels on their tv audio, you can mute this and it silences the announcers while keeping the sounds of the game intact. you might have to adjust the subwoofer lower to clear the muffled low tones as well. it makes for a very enjoyable stadium-like viewing experience 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Darragh Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 My favorite was when TreDavious White went down, and Green said "the Bills have already lost Levi Wallace tonight." Never mind that Levi was not only on the field at the time, but right in the frame standing next to TreDavious. 1 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillsfaninChicago Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 I noticed that too! I had to keep rewinding my DVR to see which defensive player was making the tackle because Gumbel and Green could not have cared less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RochesterRob Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 Gum-ball has been terrible for nearly ten years now. He always seems ill prepared for the games he is calling. There must be someone out there who is ready to take the leap from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ganesh Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 It is the preseason and national NFL broadcasters don't care. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PromoTheRobot Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 (edited) Late in the game Green said he expected McDermott to challenge a Defensive PI non-call... except the Bills were on defense! The Lions challenged. 39 minutes ago, Dan Darragh said: My favorite was when TreDavious White went down, and Green said "the Bills have already lost Levi Wallace tonight." Never mind that Levi was not only on the field at the time, but right in the frame standing next to TreDavious. I saw that. Wallace ran over to Tre to see if he was alright. Edited August 24, 2019 by PromoTheRobot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jpsredemption Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 Too many awkward silences 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bray Wyatt Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 Not to mention Green at the end said the lions lost the the turnover battle 3-0, like did he even remember what he just watched?? 3 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Best Player Available Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 Green didn't know what town he was in. On one of his comments. Gumbell needs to retire. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
transient Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 10 minutes ago, Jpsredemption said: Too many awkward silences Actually, I thought the awkward silences were the best part... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJS Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 Wasn't great, but to say it was the worst you have ever seen? That's a bit overkill. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nucci Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 59 minutes ago, ganesh said: It is the preseason and national NFL broadcasters don't care. they're useless during the regular season....with big screen HD picture and all the info on the screen....do we really need announcers telling us what we just saw? They all just speak in cliches anyway.....I would like to watch with just crowd noise. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
row_33 Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 They hate preseason the most, have to memorize the names of dozens of scrubs and try to carry the useless second half. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobDVA Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 I thought the spotters called in sick and there was no one to tell them who made a tackle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RochesterRob Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 16 minutes ago, MJS said: Wasn't great, but to say it was the worst you have ever seen? That's a bit overkill. Agreed. Most of these people here were not around for the mid-1980's when we were given the bottom of the barrel routinely in terms of broadcasters. Jay Randolph and Reggie Rucker for example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Joshin' Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 Now I am confused - I read here Tasker was the worst. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
row_33 Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 4 minutes ago, RochesterRob said: Agreed. Most of these people here were not around for the mid-1980's when we were given the bottom of the barrel routinely in terms of broadcasters. Jay Randolph and Reggie Rucker for example. Dick Enberg and Dan Dierdorf were bottom of the barrel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DBilz2500 Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 13 minutes ago, row_33 said: Dick Enberg and Dan Dierdorf were bottom of the barrel Enberg?! He’s one of the greatest of all time! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racecitybills Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 (edited) Amen to this thread. Why bother even having these two do the game. Completely out of touch. Edited August 24, 2019 by racecitybills 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunken Pygmy Goat Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 21 minutes ago, row_33 said: Dick Enberg and Dan Dierdorf were bottom of the barrel Ohhhh myyyyyyy 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ennjay Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 This gives me a chance to go off on something I always complain about. NOBODY follows all 32 teams. Nobody. But they all pretend they do. During the regular season the weekly broadcasters spend a couple of days prepping on the teams they're about to cover but most media don't even do that. The national guys -- the ones you catch on radio morning shows or ESPN or Fox1 -- all pretend they kn ow something but they don't. They have a little knowledge of, say, the top six or eight teams, and maybe the local teams (like the Jets and Giants if they're based in New York) but for most of the league they repeat nonsense based on last year's record and the same stories/rumors everybody else passes around. So if someone says once that Josh Allen is inaccurate, that's what everyone "knows" and keeps saying. And the Patriots must be good because they're always good. (I've seen nothing that actually analyzes the NE roster but a lot of predictions based on exactly that.) Other than Ron Jaworski in the old days, I don't think anyone spends the time watching actual games of the people they're spouting about. That being said, the OP was right here -- Gumbel and Green sounded like they did little or no research on either team and we're reading notes someone left on the table for them, like where each D finished last year. Was Ed Oliver in the game last night? Do the Bills even have TE's on their roster? Couldn't tell from those guys. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Defense Posted August 24, 2019 Author Share Posted August 24, 2019 2 hours ago, RochesterRob said: Gum-ball has been terrible for nearly ten years now. He always seems ill prepared for the games he is calling. There must be someone out there who is ready to take the leap from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. Yes. I always wondered why he and Simms stopped working together. But now it seems likely a football guy like Simms couldn't work with someone who seems to know and care so little. 2 hours ago, coloradobillsfan said: maybe this is a good time to remind those with center channels on their tv audio, you can mute this and it silences the announcers while keeping the sounds of the game intact. you might have to adjust the subwoofer lower to clear the muffled low tones as well. it makes for a very enjoyable stadium-like viewing experience I have never heard of this, but will see if this is possible on my tv. A great idea, as during the year I can do that and listen to the Bills radio broadcasts when weak and careless broadcasters are doing on TV. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Defense Posted August 24, 2019 Author Share Posted August 24, 2019 1 hour ago, MJS said: Wasn't great, but to say it was the worst you have ever seen? That's a bit overkill. No, it was not overkill. THREE to FOUR mentions of who made the defensive plays in the entire second half when the Bills were on defense! 3-4! And almost zero mention of ANY preseason Bills information. Those are abysmal statistics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Plastic Cup Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 Standard Gumble....he always sounds like that. Great voice though. The best was the strip fumble/recovery on the last Lions drive. The ball was on the ground and he's saying something like "he makes the catch, gets hit....." It's like he's reading the play by play off a script for a radio audience in the '40s, two seconds behind live action. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RochesterRob Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 24 minutes ago, Ennjay said: This gives me a chance to go off on something I always complain about. NOBODY follows all 32 teams. Nobody. But they all pretend they do. During the regular season the weekly broadcasters spend a couple of days prepping on the teams they're about to cover but most media don't even do that. The national guys -- the ones you catch on radio morning shows or ESPN or Fox1 -- all pretend they kn ow something but they don't. They have a little knowledge of, say, the top six or eight teams, and maybe the local teams (like the Jets and Giants if they're based in New York) but for most of the league they repeat nonsense based on last year's record and the same stories/rumors everybody else passes around. So if someone says once that Josh Allen is inaccurate, that's what everyone "knows" and keeps saying. And the Patriots must be good because they're always good. (I've seen nothing that actually analyzes the NE roster but a lot of predictions based on exactly that.) Other than Ron Jaworski in the old days, I don't think anyone spends the time watching actual games of the people they're spouting about. That being said, the OP was right here -- Gumbel and Green sounded like they did little or no research on either team and we're reading notes someone left on the table for them, like where each D finished last year. Was Ed Oliver in the game last night? Do the Bills even have TE's on their roster? Couldn't tell from those guys. I get that but there was a time many years ago it seemed Gumbel was far better prepared for the non-A games of the week. Maybe he has just lost it mentally. Not everybody's mind is sharp far into old age. I think that Gumbel is still on because for the most part he is smooth and his manner is well suited for football. Contrast that with Jay Randolph who I mentioned previously. Randolph was a golf guy asked to do footballl in my mind and it showed. Reggie Rucker who I also mentioned simply lacked the depth to do a lot of analysis but I don't think that you could accuse him of not trying. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CLTbills Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 1 hour ago, MJS said: Wasn't great, but to say it was the worst you have ever seen? That's a bit overkill. It was bad, but it wasn't Beth Mowins bad..... Then again, Mowins isn't unprepared, she just has a horrible voice.. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlimShady'sSpaceForce Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 Yes they were not very good. The good news. Ok. That’s a lie. We get them week 2 against the Giants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Defense Posted August 24, 2019 Author Share Posted August 24, 2019 1 minute ago, RochesterRob said: I get that but there was a time many years ago it seemed Gumbel was far better prepared for the non-A games of the week. Maybe he has just lost it mentally. Not everybody's mind is sharp far into old age. I think that Gumbel is still on because for the most part he is smooth and his manner is well suited for football. Contrast that with Jay Randolph who I mentioned previously. Randolph was a golf guy asked to do footballl in my mind and it showed. Reggie Rucker who I also mentioned simply lacked the depth to do a lot of analysis but I don't think that you could accuse him of not trying. Just checked, and surprised that Gumbel is 73! But that is no excuse. Even if he has lost it a bit, he could easily have information in front of him to guide him. And the things we are talking about in this thread don't require a lot of mental acumen. I agree with those that say his voice sounds good, easy to listen to. But it was clear had done almost no work, just sat down and (and extremely poorly) did the play by play in the broadest sense of that. But ditto for Green as well. And the director and producer as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SCBills Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 They were annoying, in the sense that they announced the game like it wasn’t preseason. I get that it’s a product and the NFL markets preseason as more than just the garbage that it is, but I don’t really care about Trent Green’s in-game analysis about what we should do to win the game when we clearly didn’t care at all about that. The nonstop vanilla running all half should’ve given it away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil The Thrill Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 3 hours ago, Mister Defense said: This was possibly the worst performance by a network broadcasting team of an NFL game that I have ever seen. Like many Bills fans I was watching the Bills/Lions game to see how individual players performed. But good luck doing so last night! Lazy, unprepared Gumbel almost never mentioned the Bills defensive players who made the plays. This became increasingly clear to me as I watched the tape of the game late last night. So in the second half I started keeping track of how often he did this. By late in the fourth quarter Gumbel, paid millions to be a play by play broadcaster, had stated the name of the Bills defensive players 3-4 times in the entire second half!, mainly for sacks or almost sacks--almost nothing else. Without a current roster with me, and almost no replays of the defensive plays, I had no idea who was involved--on almost every play. And Green was no better, almost never even commenting on the play after. Not on the player, not on the play call, just general BS from him. Immensely unprepared. The same lack of detail, lack of preparedness and professionalism, was apparent in all aspects of this very lazy broadcast. They almost never looked beyond the VERY broad outcome of the play on either defense or offense, almost never getting close to the details of what actually happened on the plays. This lack of preparation and competence was just as clear in their complete lack of knowledge of almost all that has happened in training camp on either team--almost zero on the individual players, their stories, and how things have progressed. Or how they may turn out. I think Tasker and Catalano have been doing a pretty solid job on the preseason broadcasts, especially in the Panthers game. So I was shocked at how awful Gumbel and Green did last night. This is their job, what they should be doing all week to prepare, but clearly Gumbel and Green did almost no prep work, and worse, seemed to care almost nothing about this important 3rd preseason game. They, and their producer/director, should all be held accountable. Did others notice these same things from this dynamic duo? They were pretty bad, especially how they called it like it was a regular season game. It would not surprise me to find out that we’re instructed to do so. Still it was pretty bad 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buffaloboyinATL Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 3 hours ago, Mister Defense said: This lack of preparation and competence was just as clear in their complete lack of knowledge of almost all that has happened in training camp on either team--almost zero on the individual players, their stories, and how things have progressed. Or how they may turn out. Lol! So true. They called Duke Williams a “first year player out of Auburn”. Way to dig deep on that pre game research. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris66 Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 3 hours ago, ganesh said: It is the preseason and national NFL broadcasters don't care. Its Bills lions and the national broadcasters dont care. That was a tough game to watch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaBillsFanSince1973 Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 2 minutes ago, Chris66 said: Its Bills lions and the national broadcasters dont care. That was a tough game to watch. thanks for stopping by to let us know that. so special 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Defense Posted August 24, 2019 Author Share Posted August 24, 2019 (edited) 21 minutes ago, buffaloboyinATL said: Lol! So true. They called Duke Williams a “first year player out of Auburn”. Way to dig deep on that pre game research. Good point and example. So they were not just silent when it came to the specifics of the game, they were inaccurate too. I caught the reference to Williams as well, a first year player. What a shame Green was so unprepared and lazy. Williams was the best receiver in the CFL last year and is now trying to show that he could do great things in the NFL as well. And last night was another step ahead for Williams. What an interesting story and they were sitting right in the middle of it. But neither man knew anything about him. That is really bad preparation. If Gumbel and Green had knowledge like that themselves, they would they have been able to share it with the audience and engage them more. More importantly, that kind of knowledge could have made both of them more interested and engaged in the game. Edited August 24, 2019 by Mister Defense 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Darragh Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 1 hour ago, CLTbills said: It was bad, but it wasn't Beth Mowins bad..... Then again, Mowins isn't unprepared, she just has a horrible voice.. She did the Raiders-Packers preseason game this week. I tried watching it because of knowing the Raiders a bit through Hard Knocks but I had to turn it off. I was so confused by the way they had the field set up, it was really disconcerting. Maybe it would have been too much to expect her to keep clarifying that the "end zone" started at the 10 yard line. If I'd watched that game to the end I think vertigo would have set in. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billsbackto81 Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 3 hours ago, ganesh said: It is the preseason and national NFL broadcasters don't care. This is true. How motivated are you going to be calling a preseason snoozer that features players no one will remember in a month. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSHMEAB Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 I guess I'm in the minority, but while Green made some hilariously inaccurate comments, I thought he also made some strong points on nuance and detail. Gumbel is who we thought he was! Been around forever. He's meh. A familiar voice that doesn't bring much to the table. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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