1. NFL officials have faced intense scrutiny this year for missed calls, blown calls and overall ineptness. One aspect that doesn’t get talked about enough is that they also take forever to make their calls during replay. ESPN’s Troy Aikman had enough of all of it during Monday’s Packers-Giants game.
He had enough.
NFL analysts across the sport have to be very careful when criticizing officials because they know the league will call their bosses in a heartbeat. None of them really go after the officials in a real way and on the rare occasion someone calls out an official, they always preface it with some nonsense about, “Officials have a hard job and they get most calls right blah, blah, blah.”
However, at one point in this game, when officials were taking a long time to make a call on an obvious play, Aikman just let it fly. There was no phony preamble, no sugarcoating, no playing both sides of the fence. Just brutal honesty.
“The problem with all this is just make a call, ya know,” said Aikman. “I mean there’s 13 seconds in the half. They’re not gonna, you know, just make a decision. And this is what stops all these games and the officials, I know, they’ve been talked about every week. But this is ridiculous what we’re watching right now. We see something; it takes five seconds. It takes them five minutes.”
This is why Troy Aikman is the best analyst in the NFL. Not one other analyst would have the balls to destroy the refs like this. Not one. pic.twitter.com/ieXjtzRlQR
— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) December 12, 2023
One of the most overused GIFs on social media is the famous clip of Michael Scott from The Office slamming a desk and screaming, “THANK YOU.” But that was every single viewer Monday night when Aikman spoke.
Everyone you see on TV when it comes to the NFL serves the league and Roger Goodell first and foremost. Here's what Aikman did. He served the viewers. He spoke for the fans.
Hopefully some of Aikman’s peers were watching and took note because NFL fans need more than one person on television giving us the truth.
2. A few thoughts on ESPN’s double dose of Monday Night Football last night.
• I had no issues with both games kicking off at the same time. If I can watch six to eight games at 1 p.m. each Sunday, I can handle two games on a Monday night.
• Having said that, I think it would be smart to stagger the kickoffs just slightly, maybe 15 minutes. ESPN and ABC got lucky last night because Packers-Giants and Titans-Dolphins both went down to the wire. If you stagger the start times, viewers can then focus in on one ending at a time. Of course, the flip side of this is that if one of the games was not competitive, this wouldn’t have been a problem.
• The double box that ESPN often went to during each game was annoying and unnecessary. So was the scorebug that would invade the screen at certain times to keep viewers abreast of the other game going on.
3. How stunning was the Titans’ 28–27 comeback win over the Dolphins last night?
Teams down 14 points with less than three minutes to go in regulation were 0–767 since 2016 until the Titans pulled off their win.
The Titans were also the first team to be down 14 points with less than 2:55 left and win without overtime.
In addition to leading the historic comeback, the Titans’ quarterback also gave us this unintentionally hilarious moment.
Will Levis absolutely blasted someone with a chest bump pic.twitter.com/L5ggBSuzzL
— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) December 12, 2023
4. What are we doing here? The Lakers are going to hang a banner for a lame, contrived creation that nobody cared about? Really?
The Los Angeles Lakers will unveil a unique NBA In-Season Tournament banner to honor their 2023 IST championship. It will be a single forever banner hung on Dec. 18, where future dates will be added should the franchise win additional IST titles in future.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) December 11, 2023
5. This is from a few weeks back when Joe Burrow was still playing before getting injured, but I just saw it Monday. NFL play calls are just a completely foreign language, but they also seem pretty humorous.
View the original article to see embedded media.
6. There are two episodes of SI Media With Jimmy Traina for your listening pleasure.
First up was ESPN football analyst Booger McFarland, who discussed the College Football Playoff, FSU’s snub, his Michigan-Alabama and Texas-Washington predictions, his time on Monday Night Football and much more.
WWE superstar Seth Rollins also joined SI Media With Jimmy Traina last week. Rollins talked about his viral reaction to CM Punk’s WWE return, why he dislikes Punk, his issues with Roman Reigns, his love of the Chicago Bears and much more.
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.
You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Sports Illustrated‘s YouTube channel.
7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: After last night’s Packers-Giants game, we remember a scene from one of the greatest comedies of all time.
This just happened on MNF pic.twitter.com/9t9HHat4AB
— Dusty and about to retire • Rob HaZe (@robhaze) December 12, 2023
