Comparing TV Booths- Who’s better All time and Now?

Summeral and Madden are the gold standard.

current...Michaels and Collinsworth.

i did like the fox 3 man team of Buck-Aikman-Collinsworth....that was a good group.

for my money...today...Aikman is the best color man since Madden.

Al Michaels still the best play by play...in my opinion.

Summeral and Madden on Sunday

Gifford, Cossell and Meredith on Monday night

And Jack Buck and Schramm on the radio.

Now this is the holy trinity of NFL broadcasting.

CouchCoach said:

Bullet, just change your moniker to mine as that's my list except I am a little stronger against Nantz and Romo. They talk off mic to each other too much and Romo doesn't project his voice above crowd noise and I prefer to be told what they did, if they must, to what he thinks they're going to do. I find them so annoying that I've started just listening to music while watching any CBS game they're doing. Romo is work to try and listen to him.

I am a real throwback to one man booths with Glieber doing the Boys, Drees doing the Cards and Scott doing the Packers. There was never a good reason for the 2nd man for me.

I don't get the blowback here against Buck or Collinsworth but I do get the Romo love. Buck is clever and along with Michaels has the best broadcast voice in the biz and Collinsworth is the closest one we have to Madden now that watches the game for us for that notice that it is changing. I do not ever recall Maddfen making his announcement that the OL was taking over the game and missing it, the game was simply over.

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I think Romo could use some broadcast coaching. He’s smart and insightful on occasion, but IMO “less is more” in the TV booth. Romo wears me out. By mid- first qtr I’m exhausted from all the pre-snap yelling about what’s going to happen.

The best TV broadcasters in my book help the viewers understand what their seeing without over-describing. That’s what made Pat Summerall great. And I think Joe Buck does that too. TheJoe Buck hate I hear every year usually centers on fans P’oed when their team is losing hearing the broadcasters saying nice things about the hated opponent.

Shout out to the OP for bringing up Frank Gleiber. He was the voice of the Cowboys to me growing up, not only broadcasting games but also hosting The Tom Landry Show on Sunday mornings and the Tex Schramm radio show on KRLD Monday evenings.
My favorite broadcasting team was Pat Summerall and Tom Brookshire---I liked them better than the Summerall-Madden pairing.

(Most boring broadcasting team in the history of the universe--Curt Gowdy and Al Derogatis)

pancakeman said:

I think Moose is the most underrated in the game.

Madden and Summerall were great but hung it up too late—in the late years Summerall lost his edge completely and Madden as mentioned became a parody of himself.

I agree with the (unpopular around here) opinion that Buck and Aikman deserve their A-team status.

Phil Simms sucks. I hate how he says “him” like “eem”.

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Summerall began to fade with age and they tried to coach more of that Madden out of Madden and it didn't seem natural as it had when he was just himself. They turned into what they were in "The Replacements". But when they were at the top of their game, none better.

I often wondered how the OL felt when they knew Madden was doing their game. No one talked about them before him, they were accent pieces to the game but he'd focus on them and point out them in replays so they had to be on their toes.

Madden was my favorite for one main reason, he detested all of that individual showoff crap worse than me. My favorite line he had was during a Cowboys game when Irvin made that first down gesture and Madden just said "I didn't notice what sign he used on that previous play when he dropped it". He didn't even like the TD celebrations and said on a pregame show to the crew that he was glad all of that started on NBC with the AFC. Elmo Wright and Billy Johnson created the TD celebration and both are still the best ever's at it.

MNF even tried Rush Limbaugh at the height of his radio popularity which was dumb because he was so polarizing.

I remember Pat Summerall and Tom Brookshier well as it seems they always had the Cowboy's game, which they did because they were usually the national broadcast.

Buck and Aikman are both pretty bad if I'm honest. Far from the worst but extremely generic and flat. Buck always seems like he'd rather be doing golf or baseball.

Summerall-Madden and Gifford-Cosell-Meredith are classics.

Romo is the best of the current generation's color commentators and it's not particularly close, but he needs to be paired with a better play by play guy. Nantz is fine but not great, and as a unit they have some low-key timing issues.

always liked Dick Stockton...love his voice.
i also liked Dan Dierdorf as a color guy...very smart....always learned alot when he did a game.
i also liked Joe Theisman....on MNF and espn's Sunday Night games back in the late 80s.

best MNF group...Frank Howard and Dandy were the best.....never be beat.

also loved Mike Patrick as a play by play man...that was a good crew with him,Theisman and Paul Macguire.

Bobhaze said:

I think Romo could use some broadcast coaching. He’s smart and insightful on occasion, but IMO “less is more” in the TV booth. Romo wears me out. By mid- first qtr I’m exhausted from all the pre-snap yelling about what’s going to happen.

The best TV broadcasters in my book help the viewers understand what their seeing without over-describing. That’s what made Pat Summerall great. And I think Joe Buck does that too. TheJoe Buck hate I hear every year usually centers on fans P’oed when their team is losing hearing the broadcasters saying nice things about the hated opponent.

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Same for Aikman. The minute he had to be objective and say nice things about the Eagles, he was dead to some posters.

When I used to meet buds at the sports bar for games, the entire bar would play the Joe Buck drinking game. Every time he looked at the camera and smiled that toothy grin, we'd slam em down. He's backed off a lot on that because I think he became aware of the drinking game and his cheerful personality was filling the rehabs.

I can't think of one person that has carried on the tradition of sports broadcast excellence better than Joe Buck has for his Dad.

The one I don't get is Collinsworth. It is apparent he is a Cowboys fan and has been ever since he started in broadcasting. Why wouldn't they like him? I like him because he won't pull punches when players screw up and he doesn't get caught up in the contract game like some do. If I want a business report, I'll find one, stick to the damned game of football.

nyc-cowboy said:

I used to like listening to Summerall and Brookshier, then Madden cam along and took it to another level.

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Yea , I preferred Brookshier.

Bobhaze said:

I think Romo could use some broadcast coaching. He’s smart and insightful on occasion, but IMO “less is more” in the TV booth. Romo wears me out. By mid- first qtr I’m exhausted from all the pre-snap yelling about what’s going to happen.

The best TV broadcasters in my book help the viewers understand what their seeing without over-describing. That’s what made Pat Summerall great. And I think Joe Buck does that too. TheJoe Buck hate I hear every year usually centers on fans P’oed when their team is losing hearing the broadcasters saying nice things about the hated opponent.

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Nantz is responsible for Romo, he got him there and is in charge of his training and he makes the same Broadcast 101 mistakes as Nantz does. They both forget the audience is not sitting next to them.

CouchCoach said:

Same for Aikman. The minute he had to be objective and say nice things about the Eagles, he was dead to some posters.

When I used to meet buds at the sports bar for games, the entire bar would play the Joe Buck drinking game. Every time he looked at the camera and smiled that toothy grin, we'd slam em down. He's backed off a lot on that because I think he became aware of the drinking game and his cheerful personality was filling the rehabs.

I can't think of one person that has carried on the tradition of sports broadcast excellence better than Joe Buck has for his Dad.

The one I don't get is Collinsworth. It is apparent he is a Cowboys fan and has been ever since he started in broadcasting. Why wouldn't they like him? I like him because he won't pull punches when players screw up and he doesn't get caught up in the contract game like some do. If I want a business report, I'll find one, stick to the damned game of football.

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I love Troy. He’s probably my favorite Color at this time but don’t like Buck. He should stick to MLB.

I agree with one of the posters above about Moose Johnston being underrated!! To me, he is one of the best!! He should be on Fox's number#1 team instead of Aikman!!

CouchCoach said:

Nantz is responsible for Romo, he got him there and is in charge of his training and he makes the same Broadcast 101 mistakes as Nantz does. They both forget the audience is not sitting next to them.

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Nantz is best with PGA. And Romo crackling voice isn’t suited well for broadcasting. Don’t listen to CBS much anyway.

My first recollection of a booth team was Al, Frank and Dan on MNF. That's the pinnacle for me because of nostalgia.

Summerall individually is probably my favorite all time.

He & Madden were good early on. I came to completely loath Madden when he tried to make everything funny with his gibberish explanations and continually spouting his take when replay was clearly showing it was not what he said it was.

I have no problem with any of the current booths. Anyone can find things not to like about a broadcaster but you have to remember they are trying to entertain & educate for 3.5 hours. It has to be brutal for them when the game is lackluster and they are literally pulling at straws about the 3rd string FB's journey to the NFL.

As for Romo, I haven't gotten tired of the prognostication yet ..... but i had wondered if that would start to wear thin with the masses if he doesn't keep it on a pitch count.

glimmerman said:

I like Romo. When he calls the play before the snap. Helps see the game when you kind of know who is getting the ball and who to keep a eye on.

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Romo does something that I loved about madden
He teaches the viewers about the game
He points out what he sees that fans don’t know to look for
Madden and Summerall are the gold standard though

My favorite play by play announcer now is Mike Tirico although he’s currently waiting in the wings at NBC for Michaels to retire.

Lunquist was an early favorite Cowboys broadcaster but I grew to like when Hansen and Sham worked together. Were my favorite combo.

We are as subjective about the people that do the games as the people that play them. We either like them or we don't.

However, with my broadcast experience of 25 years, just from the viewpoint of doing the job right as it was originally designed, Aikman and Buck are the gold standard. I don't care whether people like them or not, they do the job better than all of the others because first and foremost, you do not have to work to hear them. Projecting their voices without yelling is job 1 and they're both very well trained at that. Michaels is right there with Buck. I don't really care for what Daryl Johnston has to say most of the time but he is very good at saying it. He responded to the training as well as Aikman did.

When they tried Aikman out in his first gig, Europe, they were really surprised because his broadcast voice was not his natural. He's pretty soft spoken, not as raspy as Romo, but he used proper technique to project his voice and created more energy. He learned to be a broadcaster just as he had being a QB, proper mechanics and technique.

Aikman treats broadcasting as more of a science and Romo treats it as art, just as they did the QB role.