Brett Favre failed his ‘Monday Night Football’ audition
https://nypost.com/2018/04/17/brett-favre-failed-his-monday-night-football-audition/Failed? I admit I have different tastes on most football things these days compared to most people, especially younger folks, but failed? Hmm. I had been telling folks for years Favre would be one of the first people I'd like to try out because I think eventually he could make for an interesting hire.
I would have only had some smaller concerns that, in totality, might add up to a large concern about him in a booth. The smaller, filler moments coming into segments, going out of segments, and between plays would be an unknown to me about Favre that could doom him. He's kind of guarded as a bit until he is REALLY comfortable and then the magic comes through. Pairing him with someone smooth that has a good connection with him would have been my goal to see how he would handle those smaller spots and the in between, dead football moments when he can't turn to analysis, analysis, analysis.
Maybe that was a small part of it. If it was, I could definitely see him showing that he's not ready. If I'm putting myself in a TV execs shoes, that's where I'd have liked to have seen if I could have found the right surroundings for him that would minimize those things until he became more comfortable.
That's actually an area where I think Romo excels at for a new guy. I enjoy a lot of the dead, slower, in between stuff with him even if it's a hair forced sometimes to make it look like how he thinks it's supposed to look. He was someone I was in agreement on that should make for a good to possibly eventually great announcer/analyst down the road.
I always questioned if Favre would want to put in the work it takes to be a really good booth/analysis guy either. That had been my biggest concern first and foremost because the actual booth stuff. Is he going to be a good meeting guy on a Wednesday? Is he going to want to do the travel? Is he going to require special treatment in order to get him into a booth to do the hard stuff (Hello, Al Michaels)?
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Rex Ryan, one of my favorite football people ever, I can not see ever being a great booth guy. Even if you pair him with an outstanding partner that suits him I don't see it happening for him. Rex is REALLY smart, and I probably give him more credit and leeway for being able to eventually figure out a lot of things on the TV side, but the feelings I get from him early on do not strike me as a guy that would make for a good both hire. I probably would pass on putting extra energy into trying to make him a booth guy.
I'm all in on Greg Olsen. With him there are times where it still feels a LITTLE forced like he's trying to do things to make it feel like he's an announcer but he doesn't do it in a way that bothers me or where it's too distracting. I think he's one of the next guys coming up who has a chance to be a star announcer.
Louis Riddick, one of my favorite football people, even though I'm not usually in agreement with him on player evals/rankings, is another guy that should OBVIOUSLY be one of the next ones under consideration. Riddick's style is completely his own. I don't yet have a strong opinion on the Monday Night booth specifically and how he'd handle specific partners but just because I like and respect him so much, even without the player eval stuff, he'd be up there, too. It's not often I disagree with a guy so much on player evals that I still love to hear from them as much as I do but Riddick is that guy. Probably because even if stylistically I don't agree with him I know where he's coming from better than a lot of guys and I know it's coming from a solid place and I kind of know what he's looking at and where it's coming from.
The biggest thing about Riddick I would tell TV guys is don't go in trying to make him fit into a typical cookie cutter announcer. If he comes off as different let it be. Not that he shouldn't work on typical things. But I think if you hire RIddick or give him his shot it's GOING to look different than almost anybody out there going these days. Let that stuff take over, within reason. Those areas are where you get the brilliant Louis Riddick.
Warner and Hasselbeck are OK. They rarely WOW me with just about anything but at the same time they rarely say stuff that I think is so beyond stupid or makes them embarrassing in their roles. I don't think they'd be complete flops. I think they'd make OK substitute announcers if you ever needed a guy on short notice in a pinch. I just think you could do a lot better, and a lot worse, than them, too.
The Randy Moss stuff. The Charles Woodson stuff. Those are such bad options I still have a hard time actually believing that they are under consideration by anybody who has control of this stuff. Seriously. I'm not trying to be THAT guy that exaggerates this stuff for effect. They are awful. I just don't know how in the world ANYONE could say they should be in an announcing booth (or in an analyst role in a TV studio) and it being a good idea. I know the ability to reach the youth of today goes a long way these days with a lot of these TV execs, and apparently that's where Randy really takes off for some of these people, but it just blows my mind that either has been mentioned. Even though I really don't think in the end it'll come close to happening.
