NFL Network... Poor game experience

[Scotman]

Is it just me, or was that one of the worst announced games ever? Dick couldn't talk and finally gave up. Couldn't hear Faulk when he came in. Plus, what is up with trying to pan the dadgum camera around before each play? Just show me how they are lining up and let me watch the game. All the networks are doing that now. Drives me nuts.

The oly thing that saved it from misery was....




WE WON!!!!!! So, all's well that ends well.

[smarta5150]

They have all been terrible.

I just throw it on mute and listen to the radio or something.

[big dog cowboy]

Every NFL Network game has been terrible. Their announcers are the worst. Gumbal especially is just horrible.

[Kevlee06]

Gumble is horrible and they should tell everyone to stop calling out the penalties. Let the refs tell us!

[Aikmaniac]

It was nice to hear from Gumbel that Romo just barely beat the "shot clock".

[McCordsville Cowboy]

Horrible!!!! That shot clock reference made me shart myself!!

[JWitten]

It was nice to hear from Gumbel that Romo just barely beat the "shot clock".

Over and over and over again. Gumbel needs to go, Sanders didn't to too bad for the call from the bull pen but Faulk and the rest were just horrible. Almost like a train wreck you can't help but look!

[BrAinPaiNt]

Terrible.

Even not having their ducks in a row because someone had to know that Collinsworth would not be there and Vermeil having laryngitis.

Terrible.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Gumble is terrible. Vermeil was unable to perform but normally is very good.

I thought Sanders did a tremendous job especially once you consider that he had no preperation.

[LowTech]

The NFL network does need to work on its broadcast. To put it mildly, it sucks.

[Darkhound]

Those people in the NFL network are not profesionall commentators.

[RedLine]

Gumble is awful, but I thought Deion did a pretty good job.

The only good thing about the NFL Network is that they do not kill you with tons of commercials.

[lurkercowboy]

I rather enjoyed it. Better than many booth crews on the various networks.

[speedkilz88]

Compared to Gumbel, I thought Vermeil sounded great.

[JJHLH1]

The league should be embarrassed with the production of their NFL Network games. Bryant Gumble is a horrible announcer. His voice is too high and his comments are frequently wrong. The halftime show was shown in standard definition, not HD.

At one point the were showing Barber's stats and instead of having Barber's small image next to the stats, they had T.O.'s. Inexcusable. My friend and I had a good laugh at that.

The only thing that was done well, production wise, were the blimp shots.

[Mr Cowboy]

I watched at a friends house, and was not impressed what so ever. And we espect Time Warner to bow done to them.

This was a terrible watching experience.

[EastDallasCowboy]

This was my first experience with NFLN.

I liked Vermeil's insight, but with his voice tonight....can't they get a sub for him?

Gumble was terrible.

Honestly, it was pretty poor.

I really wish we could get the graphics and professionalism of Fox plus the great fantasy and stat/score tickers of CBS minus the stupid Fox dancing robot. Oh, and get rid of Siragusa.

[Kaika]

I watched it on Sopcast with the sound off and Watched 'It's a wonderful Life " with the wife.

And every now and then I checked with the forum for the things I may have missed.

All in all, A good Night.

[rexrobinson]

yep...is that the type of production they expect cable companies to pay 150 million smakaroos for? ROFL

NFL if your going to completly screw your fan base to make more money at least put out a product worthty of being in the top 5 most expensive channels.

[playit12]

I guess I'm in the minority here, but here is what I posted on another board...

I’d still like to hear Dick do some color commentary with a voice, but I have to say that the second half of this game was some of the best commentary I’ve heard all year.

We heard accurate descriptions of routes (Look route for instance) instead of ‘quick pass to the reciever’ and we heard real descriptions of progressions. Any other team this year would have spent 5 minutes bashing Vick for missing Crumpler on the 4th and 1 play. But Deion and Faulk correctly pointed out that the flow was away from AC and he really had no chance to make that play.

Also nice, TO drops one pass this game. Any other crew spends 10 minutes talking about his dropped passes being the story of the season. Mostly because they have a taped up intro of previous drops that have hurt them this season. But it certainly wasn’t the story in this game and it wouldn’t have added to the coverage. They guys gave it one stat line and moved on. Really, an all around good call on the game.

As for what was said here...

Yes Gumbell (sp?) has a bad voice, but I can deal with a bad voice if the end result is intelligent conversation. I can also excuse occasional errors on field details. It's nice if they correct it after the fact. When is the last time the Sunday night crew actually got a down and distance right?

Faulk was a little hard to hear at time, and Dick V needs to stop addressing his comments to Marshall. Deion shows a little bias at times, especially on Vick this game. However the end result tonight was 3 guys that actually knew something about the game and answered intelligently on comments. They understood routes, blocking assignments, coverages, penalties, and strategy. Even with their problems, I think the crew tonight was the best crew outside of the Excellent #1 Fox Crew of Buck and Aikman.

[big dog cowboy]

I'm optimistic the NFL Network will improve their broadcast next year. Until then.......

[jazzcat22]

Is it just me, or was that one of the worst announced games ever? Dick couldn't talk and finally gave up. Couldn't hear Faulk when he came in. Plus, what is up with trying to pan the dadgum camera around before each play? Just show me how they are lining up and let me watch the game. All the networks are doing that now. Drives me nuts.

The oly thing that saved it from misery was....




WE WON!!!!!! So, all's well that ends well.

I do not care..we won...and I had a great time ....met some great fans at the sportsbar....:) :) :) :) :)

[Meat-O-Rama]

The announcing was crap, but watching it in HD, it was the best picture quality I've seen since the Super Bowl on CBS a couple of years ago. I know some people don't like the floating camera above the field, but at least the picture quality was good. Every week when I watch the Fox 'feature game' with Aikman and Buck, I can't get over how bad the picture quality is on their overhead cam.

[J-DOG]

Thier were 2 major blunders in this game. Both by Gumbel.
1.The Cowboys were said to have been in the playoffs with this win. Not true.
2.Shot clock????I laughed because it was so bad.
Gumbel made disparaging remarks about the NFL earlier this season comparing NFL owners to slave owners. Now he his stinking up the joint on his broadcasts.
Explain to me again why he is employed by the NFL.

[lewpac]

Anything would have been better than what I had to do...........watch the play by play on the internet. No sound, no live, no nothing.
Oh well, life in Hawaii sucks...............

[chinch]

the HD feed here from comcast looked VERY good and the announcers weren't talking too much like ESPN/ABC does with the mon/sun games. the vick hype if this were fox/abc/espn would have been off the charts since it was their home game.

[dougonthebench]

It was nice to hear from Gumbel that Romo just barely beat the "shot clock".


I about choked on my energy drink when i heard that!!!:lmao2:

[alancdc]

Is it just me, or was that one of the worst announced games ever? Dick couldn't talk and finally gave up. Couldn't hear Faulk when he came in. Plus, what is up with trying to pan the dadgum camera around before each play? Just show me how they are lining up and let me watch the game. All the networks are doing that now. Drives me nuts.

The oly thing that saved it from misery was....




WE WON!!!!!! So, all's well that ends well.
I don't like Gumbel, but mainly because of his voice. Weren't they down a person last night, and that is why Deion and Faulk had to get in the booth last minute?

[CrazyCowboy]

Not the best NETWORK to watch a game--for sure

[lspain1]

They had a bad night. I don't mind Gumbel compared to Joe Buck. Vermeil is good when he has a voice. They'll get the bugs ironed out. All the other networks had problems when they began as well.

[STSINAZ]

i like deion and faulk but gumble has to go! he is a whiny little rodent!

[Derinyar]

Despite what everyone else is saying I couldn't stand Deion. It seemed to me like he was slobbering over everything Falcon. Maybe I am just misremembering things, but it definately seemed like Deion was highly pro Falcon.

[lurkercowboy]

I guess I'm in the minority here, but here is what I posted on another board...

I’d still like to hear Dick do some color commentary with a voice, but I have to say that the second half of this game was some of the best commentary I’ve heard all year.

We heard accurate descriptions of routes (Look route for instance) instead of ‘quick pass to the reciever’ and we heard real descriptions of progressions. Any other team this year would have spent 5 minutes bashing Vick for missing Crumpler on the 4th and 1 play. But Deion and Faulk correctly pointed out that the flow was away from AC and he really had no chance to make that play.

Also nice, TO drops one pass this game. Any other crew spends 10 minutes talking about his dropped passes being the story of the season. Mostly because they have a taped up intro of previous drops that have hurt them this season. But it certainly wasn’t the story in this game and it wouldn’t have added to the coverage. They guys gave it one stat line and moved on. Really, an all around good call on the game.

As for what was said here...

Yes Gumbell (sp?) has a bad voice, but I can deal with a bad voice if the end result is intelligent conversation. I can also excuse occasional errors on field details. It's nice if they correct it after the fact. When is the last time the Sunday night crew actually got a down and distance right?

Faulk was a little hard to hear at time, and Dick V needs to stop addressing his comments to Marshall. Deion shows a little bias at times, especially on Vick this game. However the end result tonight was 3 guys that actually knew something about the game and answered intelligently on comments. They understood routes, blocking assignments, coverages, penalties, and strategy. Even with their problems, I think the crew tonight was the best crew outside of the Excellent #1 Fox Crew of Buck and Aikman.

Agreed, except that Gumbel was bad all around. The other guys made up for it. I like hearing their perspective. I liked the "off the cuff" feel. Overall, it was much better than the usual bland booth work on NFL broadcasts these days. Picture quality was good and one thing I have noticed about NFLN that makes them stand out from other networks is that they show replays instead of booth shots. Bravo!

[Jarv]

The announcers weren't that great.

But Cowboys in an exciting Saturday night game was awsome ! I could get used to Sat. night games !

[xpistofer]

Despite what everyone else is saying I couldn't stand Deion. It seemed to me like he was slobbering over everything Falcon. Maybe I am just misremembering things, but it definately seemed like Deion was highly pro Falcon.

remember, deion wants to replace mora as the falcons head coach...

;)

[fiveandcounting]

The league should be embarrassed with the production of their NFL Network games. Bryant Gumble is a horrible announcer. His voice is too high and his comments are frequently wrong. The halftime show was shown in standard definition, not HD.

At one point the were showing Barber's stats and instead of having Barber's small image next to the stats, they had T.O.'s. Inexcusable. My friend and I had a good laugh at that.

The only thing that was done well, production wise, were the blimp shots.

there was another time when they had Barbers stats up and Gumble said "as you can see there Romo is having a good day so far":banghead:

[fanfromvirginia]

It was nice to hear from Gumbel that Romo just barely beat the "shot clock".
You know who is the happiest this morning about Gumble's performance? All of the so-called "****ty" announcers on the other networks. We had no idea, until Gumble came along, how good you have to be to just be a "****ty" announcer.

He was so god-awful ignorant it was astonishing.

The other bad part was that most of the talk was about individuals and very little about the flow of the game. It wasn't until the two-minute warning that Gumbel made the point that the Cowboys had taken control. The Cowboys' clock management was brilliant and the Falcons' stunk -- it was the story of the 4th quarter and it went wholly unnoticed.

[fanfromvirginia]

Agreed, except that Gumbel was bad all around. The other guys made up for it. I like hearing their perspective. I liked the "off the cuff" feel. Overall, it was much better than the usual bland booth work on NFL broadcasts these days. Picture quality was good and one thing I have noticed about NFLN that makes them stand out from other networks is that they show replays instead of booth shots. Bravo!
I don't know. Marshall Faulk comes off to me as dumb as a post. Maybe it's just me.

[LandryFan]

The league should be embarrassed with the production of their NFL Network games. Bryant Gumble is a horrible announcer. His voice is too high and his comments are frequently wrong. The halftime show was shown in standard definition, not HD.

At one point the were showing Barber's stats and instead of having Barber's small image next to the stats, they had T.O.'s. Inexcusable. My friend and I had a good laugh at that.

The only thing that was done well, production wise, were the blimp shots.

Another of his wonderful announcements occurred when Atlanta scored to make the score 14-7 in the second quarter. Now keep in mind that 14-7 in the 2nd Qtr isn't exactly a high scoring affair...it's pretty average...but Gumble saw fit to proclaim that we had a "barn burner" on our hands. Now the game did turn out to be a high scoring affair, but unless his name is Gumble Nostradamus, he had no way of knowing that the game would turn out that way. Gumble is just ptifully horrible!

[Vtwin]

I guess I'm in the minority here, but here is what I posted on another board...

I’d still like to hear Dick do some color commentary with a voice, but I have to say that the second half of this game was some of the best commentary I’ve heard all year.

We heard accurate descriptions of routes (Look route for instance) instead of ‘quick pass to the reciever’ and we heard real descriptions of progressions. Any other team this year would have spent 5 minutes bashing Vick for missing Crumpler on the 4th and 1 play. But Deion and Faulk correctly pointed out that the flow was away from AC and he really had no chance to make that play.

Also nice, TO drops one pass this game. Any other crew spends 10 minutes talking about his dropped passes being the story of the season. Mostly because they have a taped up intro of previous drops that have hurt them this season. But it certainly wasn’t the story in this game and it wouldn’t have added to the coverage. They guys gave it one stat line and moved on. Really, an all around good call on the game.

As for what was said here...

Yes Gumbell (sp?) has a bad voice, but I can deal with a bad voice if the end result is intelligent conversation. I can also excuse occasional errors on field details. It's nice if they correct it after the fact. When is the last time the Sunday night crew actually got a down and distance right?

Faulk was a little hard to hear at time, and Dick V needs to stop addressing his comments to Marshall. Deion shows a little bias at times, especially on Vick this game. However the end result tonight was 3 guys that actually knew something about the game and answered intelligently on comments. They understood routes, blocking assignments, coverages, penalties, and strategy. Even with their problems, I think the crew tonight was the best crew outside of the Excellent #1 Fox Crew of Buck and Aikman.

Well said.

I'm no fan of Gumble but I enjoyed the insights that Deion and Marshall brought.

[khiladi]

Are you kidding me?

NFL Netword put on a clinic in how a game should be called. Did you even notice that the only relevant things mentioned during the game were actually things relevant to the game?

Dick Vermeil was breaking down why particular plays were working, not just from a 'player perspective', but from a scheme perspective as well. Bryant Gumbell did not try and compensate for lack of football knowledge by talking about idiotic things outside of football, as somebody like Tony Kornheiser does.

The only problems that were rally evident were the voice quality of Vermeil and some technical glitches. Overall though, they did what they were suppose to do and that is ONLY talk about the game.

[Bleu Star]

Are you kidding me?

NFL Netword put on a clinic in how a game should be called. Did you even notice that the only relevant things mentioned during the game were actually things relevant to the game?

Dick Vermeil was breaking down why particular plays were working, not just from a 'player perspective', but from a scheme perspective as well. Bryant Gumbell did not try and compensate for lack of football knowledge by talking about idiotic things outside of football, as somebody like Tony Kornheiser does.

The only problems that were rally evident were the voice quality of Vermeil and some technical glitches. Overall though, they did what they were suppose to do and that is ONLY talk about the game.

I see a lot of truth in what you're saying. Vermeil actually did provide some great insight. with a real voice he would be pretty good in the booth. About Gumbel, the guy just makes blunder after blunder. I could honestly go without him in the booth. Last week it weas him constantly "accidentally" referring to Frank Gore ans Al Gore. He did it numerous times and kept saying oops oops sorry. oops sorry.
:laugh1:

Last night it was towards the end of the game when Vick & the Falcons were down 38-28. He dropped back and tossed it about 50 yards in the air for an incompletion. As soon as it left his hands Gumbel said "ohhhh!!! He's got a guy wide open. He's wide open!!!" As the receiver came into view he was well covered by T New and P Wat was also very close at just 2-3 yards away. I looked at my buddies and cracked up. Wide open??? Hilarious. The guy is better suited for a weekday morning talk show.

[miamicowboy21]

It was nice to hear from Gumbel that Romo just barely beat the "shot clock".


I almost fell out when i heard that. I was like OMG they can't do any better than this.

[Org1]

The team of Gumbel, Deion and Faulk had chemistry if you ask me
Once those three got together I thought it was seamless
They should think about keeping those three as a team
They all rubbed off each other perfectly
Of course work needs to be done but for real
They were much more better to listen to than the MNF crew

Vermeil is cool but his voice was dead

[Bleu Star]

It was nice to hear from Gumbel that Romo just barely beat the "shot clock".

I fell out of my chair too when he said that!

[khiladi]

Mistakes are going to happen with Gumbell, because of a lack of football knowledge.. That is something experience will teach... The thing we need to look at with him is how he is only concerned with the game... and how he keeps the commentators focused on talking about the game...

Notice how none of the commentators went on about side-show media antics or what player's do outside of the game..

[Fan Since 77]

Mistakes are going to happen with Gumbell, because of a lack of football knowledge.. That is something experience will teach... The thing we need to look at with him is how he is only concerned with the game... and how he keeps the commentators focused on talking about the game...

Notice how none of the commentators went on about side-show media antics or what player's do outside of the game..

You're just defending them so you can be an antagonist in this thread.
They suck. I didn't watch them last night, but I've seen other NFL network games. terrible.

[khiladi]

You're just defending them so you can be an antagonist in this thread.
They suck. I didn't watch them last night, but I've seen other NFL network games. terrible.

And your a mind reader? I'm speaking on what I saw LAST NIGHT... I haven't watched them other times.. I actually liked them..

If what I'm saying is untrue, that they weren't talking about ONLY the game, than dispute it... Don't go off on my opinion with some BS that I'm just not trying to be antagonistics..

Poor commentary is when you have people like Theismann and Kornheiser, or somebody like Dennis Miller who talks politics in a game... Or Madden talking about steak...

[thurmansthieves]

Did anyone else hear Gumbel say repeatedly that the Cowboys were in the Playoffs with a win? I was sure we had to have help if we won this weekend. Am I wrong or was Gumbel wrong ALL NIGHT (he said it like 5 times) and no one corrected him so I was second guessing myself. Are we in now?

[Da Hammer]

Compared to Gumbel, I thought Vermeil sounded great.
:laugh2: :laugh2: :laugh2:

[Bleu Star]

Did anyone else hear Gumbel say repeatedly that the Cowboys were in the Playoffs with a win? I was sure we had to have help if we won this weekend. Am I wrong or was Gumbel wrong ALL NIGHT (he said it like 5 times) and no one corrected him so I was second guessing myself. Are we in now?

LOL. Gumbel was a trainwreck.

[fanfromvirginia]

Did anyone else hear Gumbel say repeatedly that the Cowboys were in the Playoffs with a win? I was sure we had to have help if we won this weekend. Am I wrong or was Gumbel wrong ALL NIGHT (he said it like 5 times) and no one corrected him so I was second guessing myself. Are we in now?
Yes, he made that mistake repeatedly and it was never corrected. The key was to catch the mistake and stop making it. That wasn't his bust -- that was the crew's.

[dbair1967]

"shot clock"

"Cowboys main defensive force Demarcus Spears"

"Possum"

I just watched the replay quickly, but I bet there are numerous others I am leaving out

Gumbel is the worst play by play guy ever

David

[trueblue1687]

Like many here have said: it sucked. They seem to have good camera work, but the productin side is dismal at best. I like when the techs were out patching up the audio side of the post game crew. Spend some money and dump Eisen, Gumbel and for God's sake can Faulk and Vermiel. I found the talk very annoying and actually muted the TV and listened on my Sirius feed...much better, but a few seconds behind the video.

[Doomsday]

I kind of enjoyed listening to Vermeil, other then his voice, he had some good insight and an eye for things most dont have. Deion is also a lot less annoying in that role then he is on the pregame shows. Faulk is way too quiet/shy he needs to go.