Wednesday’s Sports Media Notebook — 12/31/2014

ShareTweet

The last notebook of the year quite a bit of stuff. Not much linkage out there, but plenty of news out there and News You Can Use.

BREAKING NEWS

CBS has announced that it will once again stream all of its AFC Playoff games for desktop and laptop computers and tablets beginning with Sunday’s Wild Card game between Cincinnati and Indianapolis. The network has rights to three playoff games this season with one Wild Card game, one Divisional game and the AFC Championship.

The games will be available on CBSSports.com and can be accessed in one particular dedicated page.

CBS does not have mobile rights as the NFL has awarded those to Verizon.

On Tuesday, ESPN held a conference call with its Monday Night Football team of Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden plus producer Jay Rothman to preview Saturday’s Wild Card game between Arizona and Carolina. Gruden did shoot down coaching rumors, but did talk about Rex Ryan getting fired and a few other things:

Jay Rothman: Real quickly, we’re excited to be in the postseason business, very excited for our Monday Night Football crew, the hard working men and women who deserve to be in the postseason quite frankly. The treatment of the game is really to cover the heck out of a playoff game where one team moves on and one team goes home and for us not to get in the way of it. Our treatment every Monday night, we have Super Bowl‑like coverage each and every Monday. We treat every game with the utmost importance, and this is just another one of those games where we’re going to have a blast doing a game in a great environment, we hope. We’re ready to roll.

Mike Tirico: I echo everything Jay said. A thrill to do a postseason game in the NFL. It’ll be an exciting milestone for me.  First time I’ve actually had a chance to do one. I would say overall just 23‑and‑a‑half years at ESPN, I don’t remember a week or a 10‑day stretch or two‑week stretch like this with all those New Year’s Six games, the College Football Semifinals, our first playoff game for the company and then the Championship game nine days later. This is about as great a run of events as we’ve ever had back to back to back. I know we’ll be in the centerpiece of it with the NFL playoff game, and we are thrilled to be a part of it, and it’s darned good to have your first playoff game next to one of the 30 men who have won the Super Bowl as a head coach. I know even if I have playoff jitters, I’ve got the guy next to me to make sure we do the right thing.

Jon Gruden: Well, thank you, Mike. I’ll be short and sweet. I love playoff football. I don’t think there’s anything like a single‑elimination format like the NFL has, and thankful to be a part of it with a great team.

Q. Jon, can you clear up, are you contractually tied to ESPN and not going to be a candidate for any coaching jobs, or is that not correct?
Gruden: Yes, I am. I’m not a candidate to coach. This is as good a team as I’ve been on in a long time. I’m excited to be a part of this team. Thanks, though.

Q.  What was your opinion or reaction to the Jets firing Rex Ryan?
Gruden: That was a tough day for me yesterday because I went through that several years ago, and a lot of these guys are my friends, including Rex. I’m really disappointed for him. I understand winning and losing is certainly the defining number for some people, but I expect Rex Ryan to get picked up quickly. I’m sure there’s some celebrations in Buffalo and New England and Miami. But the Jets, they chose to move on. I wish them the best in their endeavors, but I think they lost one heck of a football coach.

Q. With Tony Romo, he’s led the league in passer rating this year. Have you ever seen him play this well throughout his career, and what made him so fantastic this year down the stretch where he’s usually struggled, and has he kind of reached that level where we kind of say he’s untouchable with Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady type play this year?
Gruden: Well, this is my opinion, but I think they’ve run the ball better than they have ever run it. If you just check the statistics the last few years it’s almost ridiculous how lopsided they were not running the ball. Every play was a pass.  Romo had a punctured lung, he’s had bruised ribs, he’s had physical problems, he’s been throwing it and throwing it and getting hit, and usually there’s going to be two or three bad things that happen when you live like that. When we just talked about Peyton Manning, I think the balance in Dallas’s offense is awesome. They can really hurt you running the ball. We talked about Denver’s offensive line and the construction that they’ve gone under. The Cowboys have as good an offensive line as there is in the league. Maybe the best left tackle, a very good center, a thumping rookie right guard, and a really aggressive right tackle and left guard. They’re solid up front, and they have some dynamic skill players, Dez Bryant, Witten and Williams can hurt you down the field. I think it’s a combination of those things.

Q.  Is there anything he’s done differently with his game to kind of endure – to do this with the back injury and everything, it seems pretty incredible this late in his career.
Gruden: Well, I think it’s a credit, certainly, to Scott Linehan who came from Detroit, the combination of Garrett, the head coach, Callahan, the line coach. There’s a vast amount of experience. And I think Tony Romo’s relationship with Jason Garrett, what he likes, what he doesn’t like, and the fact that he’s had a lot of good looks with pass protection that he has not had before, I think it’s a combination of a lot of things, and he’s in a real rhythm, and I believe he’s healthy, and he’s going to play the best football of his life as the tournament starts. I would expect that from Romo.

Q. Jon, Andrew Luck is obviously very physically gifted, but what do you notice about him and his evolution intellectually and as a quarterback tactician?
Gruden: I just can’t get over the playing strength that he has. I think he’s on fumes a little bit. He has taken a lot of hits.  He’s wearing down. I worry about Luck. I really do. They have not run the ball very well. He’s taken some real hits. Last week was a huge, I think, confidence builder for the Colts. I really like their scheme. I just think their protection has been very inconsistent. T. Y. Hilton has been in and out of the lineup, but Luck has taken a huge amount of punishment in my opinion. If they can keep him upright, his will to compete, his playing strength and his knowledge of the game gives him a chance to win every single time out, but they’ve got to get him some better looks, I think, in the pocket.

Q. Jon, I wanted to ask you about a team that’s not in the playoffs, the Eagles. They’ve had a lot of injuries on their offensive line. They lost their starting quarterback for a good portion of the season. Watching them play this season, did you get a sense the defenses did a better job this year of adjusting to Chip’s offense the second year?
Gruden: I think so. It’s not the first time everybody has seen that style of no‑huddle, up‑tempo football. They are familiar to a degree with how to prepare for it. The number of explosive plays was reduced. I don’t know what you talk about as an explosive play, but I use 20 yards or more. I think that number was reduced a lot compared to some of the big hits that he got last year. And I think you’re going to see more and more 3‑4 defenses. I think teams did a better job against the run, and I think that’s natural, but knowing Chip Kelly like I do, he’ll make some adjustments and he’ll have a new club in his bag next spring, also.

LINKAGE

Here’s something we all love to hear. Mike Farrell at Multichannel News reports that DirecTV will be jacking up its rates by almost 6% in February.

John Walters at Newsweek (?!) looks back at the year in sports media.

George Winslow of Broadcasting & Cable says EverSport is looking to expand its portfolio by buying rights to Central and South American events.

To AdWeek where Lauren Johnson has a list of companies committed to advertising in Super Bowl XLIX.

At Sports Media Watch, Paulsen notes the Las Vegas Bowl on ABC hit an multi-year low.

Matt Verderame at Awful Announcing says former New York Jets coach Rex Ryan met with ESPN.

Kevin Eck at TV Newser says a Dallas sports anchor had some trouble pronouncing Ndamukong Suh.

Brandon Costa of Sports Video Group details ESPN’s production plans for the College Football Playoff Semifinals.

Scott Allen of the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog has NBC’s Mike Emrick glowing about the NHL Winter Classic.

Danny Ecker of Crain’s Chicago Business says Comcast SportsNet will provide viewers of Blackhawks and Bulls games with different angles on its overflow “plus” channels.

NEWS YOU CAN USE

NFL Network’s A Football Life will focus on college football for the first time this Friday as it looks at the 2006 Rose Bowl through the eyes of two celebrities, Snoop Dog and Matthew McConaughey plus interviews with the quarterbacks who played in the game, Matt Leinart and Vince Young. It airs Friday night at 9 p.m. ET on NFL Network.

Fox Sports 1 has a Big East basketball marathon today beginning at noon ET. Five games involving all conference teams. Here are the games with announcers:

noon — St. John’s at Seton Hall (Gus Johnson/Bill Raftery)
2:30 p.m. — Butler at Villanova (Tim Brando/Ron Thompson)
5 p.m. — Marquette at DePaul (Dick Stockton/Donny Marshall)
7:30 p.m. — Creighton at Providence (Aaron Goldsmith/Tarik Turner)
10 p.m. — Georgetown at Xavier (Joe Davis/Bob Wenzel)

Alexi Lalas makes his Fox debut this weekend as Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 air the FA Cup from Saturday, January 3 through Monday, January 5. Lalas will be in the studio along with host Rob Stone and co-analysts Eric Wynalda and Warren Barton. Here’s the schedule of games:

mun2 will air the Spanish-language broadcast of the Baltimore-Pittsburgh NFL Wild Card game this Saturday night. Coverage begins at 8 p.m. ET. Rene Giraldo will call the game with analyst Edgar Lopez and sideline reporter Veronica Contreras.

ESPN has announced it will air 600 hours of tennis in 2015 including all four Grand Slams, the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. The Alleged Worldwide Leader has start-to-finish coverage of Australian, Wimby and U.S. Open while being a subcontractor to Tennis Channel on the French. ESPN3 will have some 3,000 hours of online coverage of the ATP and WTA Tours as well as the Grand Slams.

And that is all for the notebook today.

ShareTweet