The NFL is Now a Paul McGuire Free Zone

Deadspin.com has an outstanding post on the end of a 20-year nightmare for viewers of ESPN's Sunday Night Football--of course, I refer to the Paul McGuire reign of terror. Reasonable people can disagree about who is the best football broadcaster of all time, but McGuire wins the award for the worst in a landslide.

The only thing I want to add to what Deadspin had to say about McGuire is that if you think he was lousy on ESPN, you should've seen what he was like when he was first starting out. I know, because I watched this ass clown do Buffalo Bills preseason games in the 1970s. He was as inane then as he is now, but he also had a tendency to giggle uncontrollably over almost any remark that was made, even his own. (My Dad nicknamed the guy "Chuckles," and would get so frustrated with his antics that he'd just turn the game off.)

Somehow, he fixed the giggling, or at least moderated it. Sadly, that's the only thing he improved on over the years.

Speaking of broadcasters, I think it's fair to say that Al Michaels' massive ego must have taken an equally massive hit when it dawned on him that Disney/ABC/ESPN traded him to NBC for the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Al, you may have finagled a way thumb your nose at cable and preserve your lofty status as a network guy, but I bet that the ESPN people are laughing harder than Paul McGuire at a Bills exhibition game.