Traina Thoughts: Booger McFarland's Praise For The Bengals Didn't Sit Well With 'Monday Night Football' Viewers
1. It's usually not fair to pick out one thing a broadcaster says during a three-hour plus game and criticize him for it, unless it's very egregious.
Booger McFarland got egregious last night. For some reason, McFarland thought it was a good time to heap praise on the Bengals while they were getting blown out by the Steelers in a loss that would move them to 0-4.
The Monday Night Football analyst had nothing but positive thoughts about Cincinnati head coach, Zac Taylor. McFarland also kept comparing the Bengals to the Rams since Taylor was their quarterbacks coach last season.
While sports fans can be overly critical of broadcasters, it really doesn't sit well with them when your spin is just bizarre and non-sensical. Naturally, Twitter noticed and had a lot to say about McFarland.
The people who have to be most bummed out by fans' reaction to McFarland as MNF's lead analyst has to be those at CBS. With Tony Romo's contract up after this season, you can bet that ESPN is gonna throw absurd money at the former Cowboys quarterback to jump ship.
2. Today marks the 40th anniversary of Chris Berman's debut at ESPN. Here's a nice tribute video the company put together for the legendary personality.
3. Let's check in and see how Bill Belichick bs'd his way through today's press conference regarding the Patriots' game this Sunday against the Redskins.
4. The Ravens are using their own website and Zapruder-like film to spin Marlon Humphrey's "choke" on Odell Beckham.
5. Snoop Dogg gives NFL players rap names is an amusing as you'd expect.
6. The latest SI Media Podcast features two interviews. First up is John Ourand from "Sports Business Journal," who discusses various sports media news stories including the increases in NFL pregame show ratings, FOX's new college football pregame show and Tony Romo's contract status with CBS. Then Matthew Berry from ESPN joins the podcast to talk about what it's like to cover fantasy sports for a living.
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Stitcher.
7. RANDOM YOUTUBE VIDEO OF THE DAY: With The Rock announcing that he'll be on SmackDown Live's debut episode on FOX Friday night, we will post vintage Rock/SmackDown videos all week. We start with a classic Rock promo.
Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on iTunes, Spotify or Google Play. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter and Instagram.
