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The Kornheiser Chronicles: Week 14

Posted Dec 12, 2006 1:46AM By mjd (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Kornheiser Chronicles

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I took a week off from the Kornheiser Chronicles, and I think that week allowed me to get a new perspective on Tony Kornheiser and the Monday night crew ... and that new perspective shows me that I didn't hate Tony Kornheiser nearly enough. When the game broadcast started, and Kornheiser went into his pre-game monologue ... it felt like the first day back at school, the teacher barking in your ear again, while you're thinking to yourself, "Dammit, here we go with this again."

Early in the game, Rex Grossman had a miscommunication with a receiver that stalled a drive. Mark Bradley ran a straight fly pattern to the endzone, and Grossman threw it like he was expecting a completely different route. I'd have liked to have heard from Joe Theismann on why the pass was incomplete, whose fault it was, and what the play was supposed to look like.

But Kornheiser talked over the play, and he just kept talking right over the replay ... and he was talking about Rex Grossman, but it wasn't anything that had to do with the play, it was something about a psychiatrist and a buffet. No explanation was ever given for anything, all at the expensive of Tony Kornheiser's desire to keep talking without saying anything that he hadn't already said about Rex Grossman in his pre-game monologue. 14 games in, that's an unforgivable mistake.
And if you listened to Kornheiser, there were two people involved in this game, their names being Rex Grossman and Mike Martz. Inbetween repeating the same thing about Grossman over and over again, Kornheiser would occasionally stop to wish Mike Martz would be the coach of the Rams. He pined for Martz at least three times, and the number of times he mentioned Grossman's struggles were virtually uncountable. I know it's a major theme, I know it's important ... but a TV guy should know that you can't keep saying the same things, again and again. And it's not like he was giving us new information on it ... he just kept framing it in a big picture sense, again and again. Mercilessly. Somewhere, Tony Kornheiser is still talking about Rex Grossman.

The guest in the booth last night was James Belushi, who always seems to pop up when ESPN is doing something in Chicago. Belushi has a show on ESPN's big brother ABC (I think it's still on the air, though I couldn't swear to it, and I'm not going to look it up at the risk of accidentally hearing Belushi's voice again), so of course, he has to be promoted, regardless of the fact that he's about the least entertaining person on television.

I don't have anything against Jim Belushi, and I don't want to be mean, but I honestly don't know one Jim Belushi fan, nor have I ever. I can't think of a single person on earth, other than those with the last name Belushi, who have ever actively wished to see him. His time in the booth wasn't terrible ... until he started celebrating a Bears touchdown, which I could've done without. But his stay was short, so I'm fine with him. All in all, I prefer Christian Slater.

The one good point Tony Kornheiser made was recommending Devin Hester for rookie of the year consideration. I'm not saying that Hester should win it, just that it is something that should be considered. But that didn't come until there were fewer than 8:00 left in the game, and it was not enough to make me forgive the first 52 minutes.

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