Yeah, I debated watching NFLN instead, but the minute I saw Michael Irvin on there, I switched back to You're With Me, Leather and Count Chocula
ESPN was awful last night. I'm praying that Trey Wingo is there tonight to host it all, he's infinitely better than Berman. Plus for the later days they cut down on the crap, ship Steve Young to whatever head injury hospital he came from and actually let Mel talk. I don't think Mel is always right or anything, but if ANYONE on that god forsaken panel should be talking, it's him.
It's an absolute shame that any of our 4 resident draftniks should put in that much time prior to the draft...only to have to watch ESPN during the event.
To be totally honest I don't really pay a ton of attention to the draft coverage. The only purpose it serves is to announce the picks to me while while I talk about football with the people I'm watching it with. If I got to watch NFLN I'd definitely pay more attention, but what can you do. Until Berman retires he'll be ruining the ESPN coverage.
I brought up the Berman/Jackson thing in a different thread last night. Berman is such a fucking asshole it's unreal. How this jerk off kept his job for all these years is beyond me. I can't fucking stand him. Jackson seemed like he didn't give a shit and wanted to knock Steve Young out. He looked so fucking pissed the whole night I was hoping he would just walk off the set.
And Berman just got his contract renewed with the network... NFL.com lets you live stream the draft and their coverage.
Only good part of ESPN last night was watching Mel Kiper look like someone pissed in his Cornflakes when Gruden challenged his opinion on Tebow. He had major butt hurt the rest of the night after that.
Dont remember...they just seemed to be going back and forth all night. When we got Wilson, Gruden was talking up the pick but you could hear Kiper in the background saying..."but....but....he's not good against the deep ball" Thats when Gruden countered with "I'm a glass half full guy". I just hate Kiper....I want to punch him in his hair.
Jon Gruden is the fucking man. I'm not too worried about the deep ball coverage. You would figure Wilson is covering the #3 receiver when he's on the field. If he was our #1 corner and was going up against Marshall and Moss x2 every season, maybe the deep ball would be a liability. I think he'll thrive in covering the middle of the field/slot-receiver guys.
I flipped back and forth between each..... I liked Mayock's analysis, but the Irvin and Deion factor cancelled that somewhat. Not to mention, at least ESPN was showing game footage of the players selected instead of 5 minutes of watching them hug and high five their friends and family :breakdance:
WHat he was doing was trying to figure out which camera was going live. 1 or 2. You see him pointing back and forth like if the control room is confused or the on set is pointing to another camera. Gotta love Gruden though!!!
NFL Live is pretty entertaining and they have a good trio with Wingo, Bruschi and Herm. Chris Berman is a bad attempt at novelty. Give me more Wingo, Gruden, Bruschi and Schefter!
The guys on ESPN seemed to me to lack organisation. Berman had no idea when trades were happening, started stuttering and stammering whenever something unexpected happened and seemed determined to get in his pre-prepared stock phrases at specific intervals, regardless of context or who was talking at the time.
I prefer the NfL Network as well. The guys seem more comfortable with one another. But then again they work together pretty much all year long, so in the short time it has been on the air it has become a more polished product than ESPN.
I honestly don't remember ESPN being this bad at televising the draft. Maybe Direct TV has been shielding me. Last night was amateur hour.
Im with alot of you guys I cant stand Irvin he really gets on my nerves I do preffer The Network durring the season and ESPN in the off-season, its a good mix up of sports in the off-season but durring the season I like to stay up to date and ESPN doesnt have all the info like The Network does but they are getting better since they added Adam Schefter (I dont have much of a choice aswell since I have cable its ESPN for me)
Another great ESPN moment was when Pats had picked Cunningham during a commercial break and Berman was going to announce the pick without having any idea of who the Pats picked and started to get pissed while waiting for someone behind the cameras to inform him of the name of the pick. Great crew - great organization!
Agree with everything said here...ESPN's coverage on Thurs/Fri was absolutely embarrassing. Berman is an ego-maniac. Jackson looked pissed off the whole night. Young wouldn't shut up. Gruden loved every player/pick. And Mel, well, I've always liked him...but it's hard for him to get his opinion in with all of the other idiots talking. I tried NFLN like a lot of you, but once I saw Deion, I switched back. What a relief it is to watch Saturday morning and see Trey Wingo driving the ship. Much cleaner, more organized, and easier to watch. How many picks in the first two days was Berman talking over while the selection was being made? And you would think it wouldn't be that hard to communicate what trades were going down. I know it gets hectic...but at points, Berman had no idea who was picking. After this weekend, I think ESPN really needs to re-think their coverage strategy.
IMO both networks were hard to watch for any length of time. I could only take 10 minutes or so of each at a time and then had to switch back to the other.
