Weirdest ongoing tradition: Announcers knowing the game plans
Heading into the Chargers game, Madden tells us that the Jets want to prove that Pennington can throw the ball downfield -- in fact, he wouldn't be surprised if they go deep on the first play. So what happens? Not only do they go deep on the first play, Pennington goes deep another 6-7 times during the course of the game.
So here's my question: Why don't both teams have someone watching the first 5-6 minutes of every telecast, just for these little nuggets? Clearly, the announcers are fed information by both coaches with the "Wink-wink, don't say anything until the game starts" agreement. Couldn't you take advantage of this? More important, why would you tell Madden and Al Michaels anything? If I were Herman Edwards, I would give the CBS announcers tidbits like, "If we can get Anthony Becht the ball 10-15 times today, we can win" and "I'm going with all onside kicks -- it's never been done before, they'll never see it coming" and even "This is terrible, but my long snapper, has been getting hammered before games and there's nothing I can do about it."
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/050114
Heading into the Chargers game, Madden tells us that the Jets want to prove that Pennington can throw the ball downfield -- in fact, he wouldn't be surprised if they go deep on the first play. So what happens? Not only do they go deep on the first play, Pennington goes deep another 6-7 times during the course of the game.
So here's my question: Why don't both teams have someone watching the first 5-6 minutes of every telecast, just for these little nuggets? Clearly, the announcers are fed information by both coaches with the "Wink-wink, don't say anything until the game starts" agreement. Couldn't you take advantage of this? More important, why would you tell Madden and Al Michaels anything? If I were Herman Edwards, I would give the CBS announcers tidbits like, "If we can get Anthony Becht the ball 10-15 times today, we can win" and "I'm going with all onside kicks -- it's never been done before, they'll never see it coming" and even "This is terrible, but my long snapper, has been getting hammered before games and there's nothing I can do about it."
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/050114
