The Amusing Announcing Compendium!

Ok.

I'll admit it.

I am a delinquent blogger. For anyone who still reads this thing: I'm sorry. Things are so busy at work that there's not much else that I can pay attention to. Alas, it is November, and I realize that without a comprehensive update in weeks now, there is a lot of paper sitting around. I've essentially taken to writing down notes on everything during games. My note-pad normally used for chemistry ideas is full of scribbles; backs of envelopes, bill-pay stubs, receipts - nothing has been left unsullied. I also notice that most of it is of the amusing announcing variety. Ergo, I present Second and One's First Annual Amusing Announcing Compendium! (And a Bunch of Other Stuff).

During the Eagles-Redskins Game (the first, not the absolute blood-sport that was this past Monday's game), Eagles fullback Owen Schmitt made some kind of big play. I don't remember what this was because my notes are illegible. Maybe he scored. Maybe he sprung Michael Vick. Maybe he took off his pants and danced around the goalpost. Regardless, whatever he did made an announcer exclaim "Holy Schmitt!"How awesome is it to have a name that doubles as a minced oath (think Meet the Fockers)? Ok, maybe it's terrible.

Truly Special Special Teams: Ok, I've seen a lot of just lousy special teams play this season. Jeff Reed can't kick in his own stadium. The Giants can't punt without getting booed. Covering Devin Hester is harder than covering up government corruption. But we finally have a winner, and it's none other than...the Detroit Lions. Yes, the Lions! They ended a game by throwing a two-point conversion out the back of the end zone thus getting 0-8 Buffalo off the schnide - and this isn't even their biggest gaffe. During week 8, they had a chance to take down the Jets. They came to a point in the third quarter where the Big Losing Cats had just scored and taken back all of the momentum. The Jets had knocked kicker Jason Hanson from the game, and, instead of bringing in, I don't know, the punter or someone who can actually kick to put up the extra point, the Lions instead turned to...300-lb rookie defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh, who doinked the rock off the upright. If there is a worse use for a defensive lineman than this, I'd like to know about it. Short of entering him in a bikini contest, I'm out of ideas.

After Titans cornerback Alterraun Verner speedily returned an interception against the Cowboys, Chris "Boomer" Berman referred to him as "Alterraun After-Verner." Genius!

Graduates of the Bill Belichick School of Opponent Demoralization, Early Valedictorian Candidate: The University of Wisconsin Badgers, content on making a statement that the BCS had ranked them too low, defeated the IU Hoosiers by a jaw-droppingly absurd score of 83-20, setting the Big 10 et al's record for highest score. 83 points. 83 points. Let's do a comparison. The Bears have scored 174 points the entire year! Apparently, IU couldn't stand the right way up and UW thought it was basketball season.

Pseudo-Scientific Analysis: Here is a statistic I crunched. In four of the six Bears victories, Greg Olsen has caught a touchdown. He has not scored in any of the Bears' three losses. Analysts have pointed this fact out as well: seems like when Olsen's in the end zone, the Bears are winning, if we throw out the one game where the Bears were without Jay Cutler. As a scientist, though, I have to caution that we don't know if this is causation ("Olsen causes the Bears to win"), an unrelated correlation ("when the Bears are winning, they utilize Olsen more"), or something different altogether ("When Mike Martz accidentally puts his underwear on backwards, he runs more tight end routes.") Regardless, I have an experiment: keep throwing to him, see what happens. 

During the messy Colts-Bengals contest, the Colts, with their positively staggering (heh) injury report, were described as "a hospital dressed in blue and white" by CBS announcers. I didn't realize just how darn funny this was (the comment, not the Colts' injury report)* until, when I was driving later and I saw the universal road sign for "hospital."

Does this color scheme look familiar?

When Buffalo WR Roscoe Parrish scored against the Bears in week 9, Fox announcers described him as "quick as a hiccup." Needless to say, the hiccup came before the Bills vomited all over themselves by throwing a backbreaking interception at the end of the game.

Northwestern/Penn State. ABC announcers described a receiver's (gosh, I wish I could remember which team's receiver) seemingly effortless route and subsequent six points as "a little dipsy-doodle in the middle." 

Obligatory Fighting Nucleophiles Update: So I lost the Chemical Bowl. It was one of those days where everything fell on its face; c'est la vie. Want to know what was really funny? I won this past week and still don't know how. I did everything wrong. I left Beanie Wells in the lineup and he was inactive. I benched Tom Brady (four touchdowns) in favor of Donovan McNabb, who laid a positively enormous egg at home the day after signing his whopping new contract. I started the wrong everything. My defense (Arizona) had zero points. I had my lineup all bass-ackwards at wide receiver. I won because Dwayne Bowe caught everything thrown to him and because Wes Welker is finally starting to look like Wes Welker again.** I might try this contrarian approach more often!

*Trust me. It's not funny at all. The fantasy football gods, in Week 5 or 6 or whenever it was, decided that they hadn't made enough of a mockery of me at the tight end position last year, and promptly knocked Dallas Clark out for the season. 

**I've been sorely, desperately deprived of the Shrieking Welkergasm for way too long. I have since acquired this Rob Gronkowski character, and look forward to starting my Patriots Trifecta against the Colts, because you know this is going to be a bigger shootout than the end of The Matrix.