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Vegaseahawk wrote:There is one drawback though. His name is Cris Collinsworth.

I was going to reply to this comment in its original thread, but I felt that it deserved one of its own.

For some reason, I seem to be the exact opposite from the majority opinion in my likes/dislikes of TV announcers, and Chris Collingsworth is a prime example. Vegas Hawk is not alone in his opinion, but Collingsworth doesn't bother me at all as I find his opinions to be informed and easy to understand. The same was true with John Madden. Perhaps it's because Madden was so bad when he first started announcing (he couldn't utter a single sentence without the word "boom" in it), but later in his career, I thought he was second to none. Joe Buck is another announcer that drives some people nuts but doesn't bother me in the least, perhaps because I liked his dad.

About the only football announcers I agreed with the consensus on as not liking was Curt Gowdy, Howard Cosell, Dennis Miller, and Tony Cornhole.

In any event, I thought it might make for an interesting conversation if we were to talk about TV announcers.

Any?

Obviously Dave Niehaus on radio was amazing for the Mariners. He made all those terrible years bearable.

Kevin Calabro is pretty great for basketball.

I like Aikman, even though he is pretty biased towards the Cowboys.

I don't know announcers very well.

I did like Jon Gruden's QB show. I can't remember him particularly well as an announcer. I tend to listen to local radio versus the national broadcast if I can. Thus Steve Raible is who I hear the most and he's good. Always pumping the Seahawks.

Aseahawkfan wrote:Any?

Obviously Dave Niehaus on radio was amazing for the Mariners. He made all those terrible years bearable.

See, now there's a perfect example. Lots of people loved Niehaus because he was exciting to listen to. But the man could not judge a fly ball. A Mariner would hit a fly ball that Niehaus would make it sound like it was a 500' shot then at the end his voice would tail off and he's say "and the right fielder catches it a few feet in front of the warning track to end the inning". Used to piss me off.

Aseahawkfan wrote:Kevin Calabro is pretty great for basketball.

I like Aikman, even though he is pretty biased towards the Cowboys.

I don't know announcers very well.

I did like Jon Gruden's QB show. I can't remember him particularly well as an announcer. I tend to listen to local radio versus the national broadcast if I can. Thus Steve Raible is who I hear the most and he's good. Always pumping the Seahawks.

Agreed on Calabro and Aikman. I couldn't stand Jon Gruden, mostly because of his voice. Too much of a sound of arrogance to it, I suppose. Raible was OK, but he doesn't hold a candle to Pete Gross, who was my all time favorite football radio broadcaster. His high pitched "Touchdown, Seahawks!" made the game come alive for me.

When I first started watching Seahawk games, I'd turn the volume on the TV set down and turn on the radio and listen to Pete Gross's call. It was far superior to the network crews as the local guys knew the team a lot better as they did every Seahawk game. Thee national broadcasters were assigned to various games at random, so a lot of times they couldn't even pronounce the names correctly. Additionally, since there is no visual for the audience to watch, radio announcers have to be a lot more descriptive of things like backs and receivers in motion. I always recommended that people new to the game watch it using this method as there was more basic information and detailed descriptions on the radio.

However, that method is no longer a viable way to watch a game. Back in the 80's, the radio was always a couple tenths of a second ahead of the TV but it was still watchable. Now they have TV signals passing through various filters and processors that results in a very large gap between that and the virtually live radio signal. What we see on TV can be up to 5 seconds behind.

Chris is one of my favorites. Also like Dick Stockton, Andrew Ciciliano (as long as I don't have to see his ears too much), Nance , Romo, Eisen, Shaun Ohara and Mooch.

Don't like Warner or Aikman or Pereira (thought he was a stooge as the NFL rules guy, no balls at all).

Can't stand Irvin or Tomlinson.

c_hawkbob wrote:Chris is one of my favorites. Also like Dick Stockton, Andrew Ciciliano (as long as I don't have to see his ears too much), Nance , Romo, Eisen, Shaun Ohara and Mooch.

Don't like Warner or Aikman or Pereira (thought he was a stooge as the NFL rules guy, no balls at all).

Can't stand Irvin or Tomlinson.

I'm not sure what it is about Romo that I don't like. He's a great analyst and has a knack for anticipating a play, but whether it's his voice or that I have a built in bias against former Cowboys (although I'm OK with Aikman), I can't stand to hear him call a game.

Agreed on Irvin, but I'm pretty neutral on Tomlinson. I can't stand Goober Bradshaw. Stupidest QB ever elected to the HOF with the only real competition for that distinction being Bret Favre.

One thing I miss about college football is Keith Jackson's play-by-play: Whoa, Nellie! and Fumbleeeeeee!

Was a big Keith Jackson fan too.

You can Add Bradshaw to my don't like list too, I guess he's also forgettable ...

I tend to like former players or coaches for the first couple of years but then some of them tend to wear on me.
The exception was Madden who had a knack of explaining what was going on in laymen's terms and I never tired
of him as a color commentator.

The problem I have with some of them is they tend to talk about players in the game they are covering as the best in
the game today or best ever and then next game the other players are described as that. Then they drone on all game
about those players.

One of the worst MNF announcers ever had to have been Dennis Miller. What an abortion that turned out to be! ABC simply got too cute in thinking that they could boost ratings by adding a comedian to the booth. I'm not sure which was worse, Miller's jokes or Al Michaels laughing at them.

Not that I don't like Al Michaels, but I can't wait for Mike Tirico to take over full time for Sunday Night Football. I loved him on Monday Night Football, and I think him and Collinsworth will make a great duo, we have already seen that a few times as Michaels starts to ease into retirement.

Most of the CBS/Fox announcers are pretty good. I like Joe Buck, pretty "meh" on Aikman. Like the duo of Nance/Romo, both sets of lead guys for those stations are mostly good. And the secondary teams are pretty good as well, no complaints.

The Monday night team now is suspect, I actually didn't mind the guy from the last couple years Joe Tessitore, he was hampered by having Booger as his colour commentator. Man, Booger got alot of abuse on social media, I felt bad for him as I didn't mind him so much from his days at Sirius NFL radio.

But Mike Tirico is my guy, love his voice and the way he calls games.

Aseahawkfan wrote:Thus Steve Raible is who I hear the most and he's good. Always pumping the Seahawks.

Holy Catfish!!! Absolutely love the guy!

Agent 86 wrote:Man, Booger got alot of abuse on social media, I felt bad for him as I didn't mind him so much from his days at Sirius NFL radio.

But Mike Tirico is my guy, love his voice and the way he calls games.

Once again, there's another announcer that I didn't mind nearly as much as others: Booger McFarland. How in the heck can you not like a guy named Booger?

Agreed about Tirico. He's very good, better than Al Michaels.

OK, here goes my personal list in no particular order, well, except for Pete Gross, he'll always be #1 in my book:
Likey
Pete Gross https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn_mToFJ-do
Steve Raible, "How about them apples, baby!"
Warren Moon
Al Michaels
Mike Pritchard
Reggie Miller
Frank Gifford
Rich Eisen
Spero Dedes
Mike Tirico
Troy Aikman
Joe Buck
John Gruden
Michael Strahan
Greg Gumbel
John Madden
Tony Romo
Ian Eagle
Kenny Albert
James Brown
Howard Cosell
Jac Collinsworth
Terry Bradshaw
Don Meredith
Andrew Siciliano

Meh
Don Criqui
Brian Griese
Howie Long
Dick Enberg
Curt Menefee
Merlin Olsen
Jim Nance
Booger McFarland
Jimmy Johnson
Joe Tessitore
Dick Stockton
Mark Schlereth

Can't F'in Stand
Cris Collinsworth, (he was a big time jerk to our crew when we did a feature on the Fox NFL guys back in 1999). Plus his voice is SO irritating, & grating.
Michael Irvin
Dennis Miller
Tony Cornheiser
Skip Bayless
Deion Sanders
Shannon Sharpe

Wow, Vegas, that's some list! Are you too young to remember Curt Gowdy? I can't believe that anyone that watched sports back in the 60's and 70's would leave him off such an extensive list.

Interesting comment about Collingsworth. Maybe I'll have to revise my opinion of him. I don't like hearing about stuck up personalities that treat common folks like us badly.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that has Pete Gross at the top of their list. Something about that high pitched voice of his. Plus he was very articulate, understood the game, and melded well with his color men.

Are you too young to remember Curt Gowdy? I can't believe that anyone that watched sports back in the 60's and 70's would leave him off such an extensive list.

Never heard Gowdy, although I heard of him. I never became a sports fan until my high school years when my dad got stationed at Bangor in '76. It was the Seahawks charter year & I went nuts for them, & to a lesser degree the M's & Sonics. I was a military brat & lived in Thailand in the 60's & 70's. It was all muay Thai & soccer for me growing up. Clink on the Pete Gross video link I posted. It's awesome.

Vegaseahawk wrote:Never heard Gowdy, although I heard of him. I never became a sports fan until my high school years when my dad got stationed at Bangor in '76. It was the Seahawks charter year & I went nuts for them, & to a lesser degree the M's & Sonics. I was a military brat & lived in Thailand in the 60's & 70's. It was all muay Thai & soccer for me growing up. Clink on the Pete Gross video link I posted. It's awesome.

Interesting bio on yourself.

You're preaching to the choir regarding Pete Gross, at least as far as I'm concerned.

That is quite a list - and I’ll take Raibs over a Gross, although I like both. We actually been blessed with guys like this, Calabro and Neihaus. I’ve heard some other teams guys that weren’t that good. I liked Mayock; hate Booger and Gifford; liked Summerall and Madden, Musberger Dandy Don.