Sailor Ripley Needs to Offer Ron Jaworski a Job

I like Jaws, but he was odd man out in the Gruden-Tirico All Players And Coaches Are Amazing And Praiseworthy Monday night telecast.

He’s a X and O nerd who is best served by his matchup shows.

is gone!

But I think his ability to deliver insight was largely neutered by ESPN’s typical over-production from the booth (his bemoaning the need to ‘sell’ Tyler Palko during a Chiefs game this year is pretty illustrative as to how much puppeteering goes on in those broadcasts).

At least the powers that be at NBC and NFL Network haven’t caved to the fear that Cris Collinsworth or Mike Mayock will confuse some dozy housewife while explaining the concept of a Cover Three look.

Collinsworth has really grown on me as a color guy over the last couple of years as he’s delivered insight and dialed down the insufferability and sanctimony (the joint measure of which is known in broadcasting circles as The Costas). Collinsworth peaked at .75 Costases during his Bill Romanowski “He spit in my face, and the face of everyone who’s ever played” spiel. In modern football broadcasting, this score was only exceeded by Joe Buck’s .87-Costas performance during Randy Moss’ fake moon incident, which he responded to as though Moss had actually dropped his pants, pooped at midfield and proceeded to wipe his feces on an assemblage of orphans, nuns and paraplegic Iraqi War veterans. Now that Collinsworth seems to have worked the Costases out of his system (I’m told that fiber and colonics help with this) he’s become a rewarding listen. And Mayock is just a stud.

Hope he keeps at it. I think @OneFootDown liked him.

THEN WHO IS WATCHING ALL OF THE TAPE!?

For the love of God, someone please think of the tape!