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Jun 25, 2009 03:15 PM
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Have you ever watched a sixth-string announcing team stumble their way through another awful NFL game,and think, "Do they have some kind of assembly line that churns out these lousy ex-football player analysts?" Well, guess what? They do!
As we speak, 24 current and former NFL players are sequestered in beautiful Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, learning the finer points of Telestrator drawing, anecdote stretching, and name-dropping that is required of all football broadcasters. They are taking part in the NFL's three-day "Broadcast Boot Camp," a training ground put together by NFL Films and the Players Association to ensure that CBS and Fox will have a never-ending supply of banal talking heads to fill their Sunday afternoon schedules.
It will include hands-on work in areas such as tape study, editing, show preparation, radio production, control room operation, studio preparation, production meetings, field reporting and game preparation. Each player will tape segments as a studio and game analyst and take part in a networking session with television executives. Each player also will serve as a live radio host on SIRIUS NFL Radio.
You think it's easy to spout things like, "If you want to win in this league, you need a solid running game!" or "Troy Polamalu is a flat-out competitor who just wants to win!" off the top of your head? No, you need people like Ron Jaworski and Solomon Wilcots to teach you that shit. And just look at some of the names you can expect to be yelling at you during that late season Rams-Falcons game in the next couple of years....
Kyle Brady! Bryant McFadden! Jerrell Pippens!! Atwaan Randle-El! La'Roi Glover! Priest Holmes! Maurice Jones-Drew! Joe Jurevicius! Matt Light! There are so many more, but space and my inability to recognize their name prevents me from printing them all here. That's not even counting the guys they turned away. Yes, Priest Holmes had to apply for TV boot camp.
By the way, stay tuned because later this summer I'll be unveiling plans for my blogger boot camp. Day 1: How To Pick The Right Parent's Basement.
NFL Broadcasters Boot Camp a Hit with the Former and Current Players [Sports Radio Interviews]
Broadcast Bootcamp [NFLPA]
NFL 2009: NFL Broadcast Boot Camp [Sportscapper Island]
Send an email to Dashiell Bennett, the author of this post, at dashiell@deadspin.com.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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