I feel like I've made a dozen posts about this over the years regarding any number of sports games. I'm gonna give it on more go here because I love football.
Most of what these games program into the commentary is completely useless fluff. I mean hours and hours worth of recording, paragraphs and paragraphs worth of script. For what? For it to get old about five or ten games later.
"Commentary will always get old" people always say.
Well hold your horses, pal. Here's the thing: you know what doesn't get old? Stuff that's actually relevant, true, and context-sensitive.
Does it ever get "old" to hear an announcer say: "Lions first and 10 at the 24 yard line, Bears defense in press coverage, Stafford under center with three wide to the right"?
Does it ever get "old" to hear an announcer say: "Linebacker crashed the play there, nice tackle, Woodley, the 8th-year-man out of Michigan."
Of course it doesn't. And it would it not be the CAT'S *** if, years into franchise, those names were replaced by your new guys? "Great stop buy the end, FAKE NAME, the rookie out of Central Florida"?
THAT'S what they should be focusing on. Nail down what's happening, what happened, and who made the play. Everything else is fluff.
And I'm sorry, but this commentary is FULL of fluff.
Every stinking game, every time a fullback touches the ball, it's a three-minute diatribe about how it's not necessarily a fullback playing that position, and when homeboy scouts players, he's scouting kickers and punters more than actual fullbacks, because the college game isn't producing fullbacks anymore. Like, Chriiiiiiiiiist.
I want to keep this as short as possible so I'll try to summarize. Every game, basically since commentary started to get pretty neat, has made this mistake: they think what we want are real-life references. They think what makes commentary cool are lines like "Ameer Abdullah had a nifty 34-yard run in the preseason last year." On the contrary, what would make me drool is if they had in place a system where they'd reference a 34-yard run from earlier in the game.
"Ziggy Ansah, his second sack of the game!" - THAT'S the cool stuff. "Matthew Stafford, 18 of 23, 236 yards and a touchdown, under center." Where's THAT line? No, let's record some more references to week two and get those into the update.
I don't know if my point is clear or not, but I'm just trying to say it doesn't have to be that difficult, and the "it will always be repetitive" is short-sighted. Certain things are never repetitive, you just have to recognize what those things are and expand upon them instead of stuff that is inherently repetitive, like how the Lions had the fewest rushing yards of any team in the league last year, which I have to listen to every game. How about changing that to what my team's rushing rank is THIS YEAR?
Most of what these games program into the commentary is completely useless fluff. I mean hours and hours worth of recording, paragraphs and paragraphs worth of script. For what? For it to get old about five or ten games later.
"Commentary will always get old" people always say.
Well hold your horses, pal. Here's the thing: you know what doesn't get old? Stuff that's actually relevant, true, and context-sensitive.
Does it ever get "old" to hear an announcer say: "Lions first and 10 at the 24 yard line, Bears defense in press coverage, Stafford under center with three wide to the right"?
Does it ever get "old" to hear an announcer say: "Linebacker crashed the play there, nice tackle, Woodley, the 8th-year-man out of Michigan."
Of course it doesn't. And it would it not be the CAT'S *** if, years into franchise, those names were replaced by your new guys? "Great stop buy the end, FAKE NAME, the rookie out of Central Florida"?
THAT'S what they should be focusing on. Nail down what's happening, what happened, and who made the play. Everything else is fluff.
And I'm sorry, but this commentary is FULL of fluff.
Every stinking game, every time a fullback touches the ball, it's a three-minute diatribe about how it's not necessarily a fullback playing that position, and when homeboy scouts players, he's scouting kickers and punters more than actual fullbacks, because the college game isn't producing fullbacks anymore. Like, Chriiiiiiiiiist.
I want to keep this as short as possible so I'll try to summarize. Every game, basically since commentary started to get pretty neat, has made this mistake: they think what we want are real-life references. They think what makes commentary cool are lines like "Ameer Abdullah had a nifty 34-yard run in the preseason last year." On the contrary, what would make me drool is if they had in place a system where they'd reference a 34-yard run from earlier in the game.
"Ziggy Ansah, his second sack of the game!" - THAT'S the cool stuff. "Matthew Stafford, 18 of 23, 236 yards and a touchdown, under center." Where's THAT line? No, let's record some more references to week two and get those into the update.
I don't know if my point is clear or not, but I'm just trying to say it doesn't have to be that difficult, and the "it will always be repetitive" is short-sighted. Certain things are never repetitive, you just have to recognize what those things are and expand upon them instead of stuff that is inherently repetitive, like how the Lions had the fewest rushing yards of any team in the league last year, which I have to listen to every game. How about changing that to what my team's rushing rank is THIS YEAR?
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