For the Love of God, Why?
This week Keyshawn Johnson announced that he will retire and join ESPN. As the title of this post suggests, this does not please me. The thing that’s so utterly horrible about ESPN’s desire to bring Johnson on board is that it shows the network remains committed to having as many shock-jock talking heads as can physically fit in one camera shot.
When ESPN finally fired Michael Irvin, it was a blessing for football fans around the country. We were no longer subjected to hearing Irvin’s inane rants or his seemingly arbitrary “calling out” of certain players. ESPN then had a chance to replace him with somebody who could offer intelligent, comprehensible analysis. So what do they do? They go out and hire somebody exactly like Irvin to fill the same role.
I blame Charles Barkley for all this. He became such a hit on TNT with his in your face “no nonsense” style that ESPN has been trying to copy it for the last four years. The problem is that Barkley is unique. He offers original analysis and he is actually funny. The people ESPN has tried to force into those roles are not. The network’s commitment to repeatedly hiring these types of people has turned Sportscenter into 15 minutes of highlights and 30 minutes of inane rambling mixed with yelling.
Just take look at what has happened to Sean Salisbury. There was a time long ago when Salisbury was one of the best NFL analysts around. For whatever reason, whether he was pressured by ESPN or decided on his own, he has slowly morphed into an all style, no substance, shock-jock talking head. It’s now rare to hear Salisbury utter something more intelligent than “He has to play better!!!” or “You have to get Tiki Barber the ball!!!.”
It’s a shame ESPN remains committed to giving airtime to people like Irvin and Keyshawn. What they need to realize is that they’re not going to find another Charles Barkley. Instead, and it may seem like a radical idea, they should be trying to hire intelligent, well-spoken analysts. Until then, we’ll just have to hope somebody offers Keyshawn a boatload of money to come out of retirement.
2 Comments »
on 28 May 2007 at 10:21 am #
You are forgetting that Keyshawn has shown himself to be a student of the game. After all, he wrote a whole book analyzing the deficiencies of the Jets offense - Just Get Me the Damned Ball!!
on 29 May 2007 at 8:09 pm #
how could I forget–that book must have spent at least 10 months at the top of the bestseller list