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By RAY BUCK
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
ESPN has a strange way of getting its new NFL analysts ready for the season.
Bill Parcells is working tonight's Friday Night Fights from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., 8 p.m., on The Deuce.
The Tuna joins Teddy Atlas and Joe Tessitore at ringside, featuring two undefeated fighters: Heavyweight Chazz Witherspoon (18-0, 12 KOs) and IBF 11th-ranked welterweight Andre Berto (18-0, 16 KOs).
Parcells -- whose passions are football, boxing and horse racing -- was asked by Atlas if he'd be interested in working the ESPN2 fight card.
Let's see. Saratoga opened its 139th season of racing on Wednesday and Big Bill was going to be there anyway. It was the fastest two-second reply in sports.
"Teddy and Bill are pretty good friends," an ESPN spokesperson said. "Bill's a big boxing fan, and the two have exchanged stories about how football players and boxers have a lot in common."
It's just a one-shot deal for Parcells, who'll be a studio analyst on Monday Night Countdown this season.
Emmitt guilty: Of what? Another ESPN analyst-in-waiting, Emmitt Smith, was criticized for a recent redirect of emphasis on Michael Vick in the dogfighting scandal.
Of course, the act is heinous and reprehensible to those of us living in the civilized world.
And while I think Smith confounded his ESPN audience with a basic lack of facts, and too much rambling, what I didn't get from his seven minutes of commentary was any kind of tacit dismissal of wrongdoing.
Emmitt identified what NFL officials don't want to believe: "There's a whole ring of [dogfighting] stuff that's going on."
Those are the words I heard.
Smith's ESPN debut comes in September on NFL Countdown and Monday Night Countdown, although some think he's already spoken -- too much.
Legal Eagle-ese: Roger Cossack, ESPN legal analyst, made a good point after Vick pleaded "not guilty" and a statement was read in which Vick apologized: How can you have both?
"If he's not guilty, what is he apologizing for?" Cossack asked.
Comic relief: Jay Leno used his Tonight Show monologue Monday to say: "Michael Vick's only chance is if he gets an all-cat jury."
Not so funny: Deion Sanders, while "trying to take you inside [Vick's] mind," wrote in his weekly column for the Fort Myers News-Press: "You're probably not going to believe this, but I bet Vick loves the dogs that were the biggest and the baddest."
You're right, Deion, we don't believe you (wrote that).
Coward's end: Merril Hoge, ex-NFL running back turned analyst, made the strongest remarks on an ESPN roundtable Thursday:
"It's a cowardly approach to being tough, isn't it? I got to have a dog representing my toughness?"
LINK
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
ESPN has a strange way of getting its new NFL analysts ready for the season.
Bill Parcells is working tonight's Friday Night Fights from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., 8 p.m., on The Deuce.
The Tuna joins Teddy Atlas and Joe Tessitore at ringside, featuring two undefeated fighters: Heavyweight Chazz Witherspoon (18-0, 12 KOs) and IBF 11th-ranked welterweight Andre Berto (18-0, 16 KOs).
Parcells -- whose passions are football, boxing and horse racing -- was asked by Atlas if he'd be interested in working the ESPN2 fight card.
Let's see. Saratoga opened its 139th season of racing on Wednesday and Big Bill was going to be there anyway. It was the fastest two-second reply in sports.
"Teddy and Bill are pretty good friends," an ESPN spokesperson said. "Bill's a big boxing fan, and the two have exchanged stories about how football players and boxers have a lot in common."
It's just a one-shot deal for Parcells, who'll be a studio analyst on Monday Night Countdown this season.
Emmitt guilty: Of what? Another ESPN analyst-in-waiting, Emmitt Smith, was criticized for a recent redirect of emphasis on Michael Vick in the dogfighting scandal.
Of course, the act is heinous and reprehensible to those of us living in the civilized world.
And while I think Smith confounded his ESPN audience with a basic lack of facts, and too much rambling, what I didn't get from his seven minutes of commentary was any kind of tacit dismissal of wrongdoing.
Emmitt identified what NFL officials don't want to believe: "There's a whole ring of [dogfighting] stuff that's going on."
Those are the words I heard.
Smith's ESPN debut comes in September on NFL Countdown and Monday Night Countdown, although some think he's already spoken -- too much.
Legal Eagle-ese: Roger Cossack, ESPN legal analyst, made a good point after Vick pleaded "not guilty" and a statement was read in which Vick apologized: How can you have both?
"If he's not guilty, what is he apologizing for?" Cossack asked.
Comic relief: Jay Leno used his Tonight Show monologue Monday to say: "Michael Vick's only chance is if he gets an all-cat jury."
Not so funny: Deion Sanders, while "trying to take you inside [Vick's] mind," wrote in his weekly column for the Fort Myers News-Press: "You're probably not going to believe this, but I bet Vick loves the dogs that were the biggest and the baddest."
You're right, Deion, we don't believe you (wrote that).
Coward's end: Merril Hoge, ex-NFL running back turned analyst, made the strongest remarks on an ESPN roundtable Thursday:
"It's a cowardly approach to being tough, isn't it? I got to have a dog representing my toughness?"
LINK
