Announcing recommendations.

In the wake of Joe Theismann being canned from ESPN Monday Night Football, here are some other changes that need to be made to lead announcing teams.

NBA
ABC/ESPN — Current lead announcing team: Mike Breen, Mark Jackson.
Mike Breen is a very good broadcaster; he is dependable, knows nearly every NBA rule, and offers exciting calls when necessary. However, his style is exceedingly dry for the majority of games, and his voice gives off the feel of a Sunday afternoon in the den with dad than of a big, marquee sporting event.

Mark Jackson takes Breen’s dry style to a different level. His monotone voice does anything but excite, let alone interest, the viewer, and his analysis is not good enough to overcome that shortcoming.

Recommendation: Mike Tirico, Jon Barry and Michael Wilbon. Tirico is the only non-analyst at ESPN (who wasn’t brought over from NBC) who has even a slight interest in the NBA. His knowledge of the nuances of the game, combined with his enthusiasm, makes him a solid choice. Jon Barry and Michael Wilbon seem to have some semblance of chemistry on NBA Countdown, and Barry (especially for a first-year broadcaster) does a decent job of analyzing the game without sounding like he’s falling asleep. Wilbon could serve a Tony Kornheiser-type role in the booth — though unlike Kornheiser with Monday Night Football, he would actually have a knowledge of the sport.

TNT — Current lead announcing team: Marv Albert and Steve Kerr.
Marv Albert is the voice of the NBA, and has been since at least 1990 (when he began broadcasting national NBA games for NBC). Albert’s much-imitated voice can be heard describing some of the greatest plays in NBA history.

Kerr, who joined TNT in 2004, is one of the most astute analysts on television, bringing an insight and self-deprecating sense of humor that has helped TNT’s NBA broadcasts become the best in sports.

Recommendation: Marv Albert, Steve Kerr, and Mike Fratello. The only change here would be the addition of Mike Fratello, who used to work with Kerr and Albert in a three-man booth until he left for Memphis in 2004. Otherwise, Kerr and Albert are the NBA gold standard.

MLB
FOX — Current lead announcing team: Joe Buck, Tim McCarver.
The next time Joe Buck brings energy to a baseball telecast will be the first time. The same can be said for the next time Tim McCarver adds insight to a telecast. The team of Buck and McCarver is one of the longest-running pairings in sports, and one of the most tortuous for viewers. McCarver’s knack for stating the painfully obvious has made him a broadcasting buffoon in many corners; for example, there is this gem from shutuptimmccarver.com:

“If you leadoff and you play every day, you’re guaranteed to bat with the bases empty at least 162 times.“

Recommendation: Joe Buck, Joe Girardi and Mark Grace. While FOX lacks any other decent baseball play-by-play voices besides Buck, there are other options for the analyst role. FOX has already hired Girardi, Grace and Eric Karros to work baseball games in the upcoming season; why not promote two of the three newcomers to the number one broadcast team? Even a rookie is better than McCarver at this point.

ESPN — Current lead announcing team: Jon Miller, Joe Morgan.
Jon Miller is the Marv Albert of baseball. His distinctive voice and style give games a big time feel, and there is no question that he is the best baseball play-by-play voice ESPN or FOX has to offer.

Joe Morgan, by contrast, has a variation of Tim McCarver syndrome. His stating of the obvious, among other shortcomings, has earned him the distinction of having a site devoted to his firing.

Recommendation: Jon Miller, Joe Morgan.
There is a dearth of good baseball analysts — part of the reason why McCarver and Morgan will likely be broadcasting big games until the end of time.

NFL
FOX — Current lead announcing team: Joe Buck, Troy Aikman.
Buck actually cares about the NFL, and it shows to some extent (during NFL games, his voice actually rises somewhat). Troy Aikman, meanwhile, is a dependable analyst.

Recommendation: Joe Buck, Troy Aikman. No changes necessary.

CBS — Current lead announcing team: Jim Nantz, Phil Simms.
Nantz is decent, though CBS has better options. Greg Gumbel was excellent in his role as lead play-by-play, and is far more useful in the booth than he is in the studio. Meanwhile, Phil Simms continues to be relatively unobtrusive.

Recommendation: Greg Gumbel, Phil Simms.

NBC — Current lead announcing team: Al Michaels, John Madden.
When he actually cares about what he’s talking about, Michaels is good. While his role as lead broadcaster for the NBA was embarrassing at best (and insulting at worst), he is at home when broadcasting NFL games.

John Madden, in many ways, is the face of the NFL. However, his analysis leaves viewers wanting more, and with age, he has lost some of the charisma that made him popular.

“Here is a mega-star who once was the best of the analysts, a guy who launched a thousand positive reputations for players, a guy who shaped trends in the NFL, a guy who could give you insight, and a few jokes, for your viewing pleasure. … Now we listen to him on Monday nights and he tells us the obvious in the first quarter, then repeats it for the rest of the game. If he has looked at tape of both teams and if he has called around the league to pick up tidbits, it doesn’t show.“

Recommendation: Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth. Collinsworth is a polarizing figure, but he brings good analysis and a certain energy into the booth. His addition would certainly make NFL games on NBC more interesting and lively.

ESPN — Current lead announcing team: Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Tony Kornheiser.
Tirico’s voice is much better suited to the NBA than the NFL. The mild-mannered Tirico lacks the requisite attitude for an NFL game; instead of conveying a gladiator, “war” mentality, he conveys a more pleasant attitude — one that is perfect for golf, decent for basketball and poor for football.

Jaworski, added to the MNF booth this week, will likely mesh well with Kornheiser. If their interactions on Pardon the Interruption are any indication, their chemistry will make the MNF booth far more bearable than it was last year.

Recommendation: Brad Nessler, Ron Jaworski, and Dick Vermeil. The team of Nessler, Jaworski and Vermeil worked the late game of the 2006 Monday Night Football season-opening doubleheader, and pleased critics.

“Accuracy, color, insightful analysis. And that described the ESPN backup team. They all respected the game. You were told at all times what was going on. And some of the observations were stunning.“

If ESPN was willing to take one step in the right direction by canning Theismann and replacing him with Jaworski, why not go all the way and give top status to that critically acclaimed trio?

NFL Network — Current announcing team: Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth. Gumbel is awful and needs to be dumped immediately. Collinsworth was the lone bright spot on NFL Network’s superfluous Thursday night games.

Recommendation: Cris Collinsworth and Dick Vermeil. Dick Ebersol was willing to try this before Al Michaels opted out of his ESPN contract: Cris Collinsworth on play-by-play. Collinsworth would partner with fellow NFL Network analyst Dick Vermeil for what would either be a successful or horrifyingly bad experiment.

NHL
NBC/Versus — Current lead announcing team: Mike Emrick and Eddie Olczyk. Emrick is a pro, and far more professional than his loudmouth predecessor, Gary Thorne. Olczyk is good, if nondescript.

Recommendation: Mike Emrick and Brett Hull. As stated before, Olczyk is a decent broadcaster and plays his role well. However, NBC is wasting Brett Hull in his current capacity, as he hardly has any time to speak during the network’s limited studio show.