Tag: Jason Garrett

Notre Dame Football: Shakeup Coming to NBC Broadcast Booth This Fall

Big News Regarding the Notre Dame on NBC TV Booth

The last two seasons have seen Notre Dame home football games on NBC announced by play-by-play voice Jac Collinsworth.

Collinsworth is a Notre Dame graduate and was an up-and-comer when named to succeed Mike Tirico, who left the booth to take over NBC’s Sunday Night Football call when legendary Al Michaels left for Amazon

According to Dan Marchand of The Athletic, Collinsworth is out for this fall and replacing him will be longtime NBC Sports voice Dan Hicks, who happens to be married to Notre Dame graduate and veteran sports reporter/anchor Hannah Storm.

According to the report Jason Garrett will remain as the color commentator for Notre Dame on NBC.

No offense to Collinsworth but going from Tirico to him felt like getting spit in the face.  Collinsworth didn’t scream “big time” in any capacity, something that is done by more flight miles and experience – not by having a known last name.

The Chiefs-Dolphins game demonstrated how awful Jason Garrett is as an announcer

Jason Garrett should not be an NFL announcer.

If the NFL and NBC wanted people to watch the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins’ playoff matchup through a Peacock subscription, the least they could’ve done is give us a better color commentator than Jason Garrett. When I say “better,” I mean that it would’ve been preferable to listen to three hours of random Wilhelm Screams than hear Garrett’s milquetoast, nonsensical analysis of an NFL postseason affair.

Don’t believe me?

What if I told you that Garrett called Patrick Mahomes a “sneaky good athlete” like he’d never watched him play before? What if I said he seemed to make a reference to Vitamin C’s infamous melody about over-appreciating one’s high school years? And these are just two examples!

At seemingly every turn, rather than add, you know, color to a broadcast, Garrett opted for the low-hanging fruit. He offered the most anodyne possible descriptions of sequences during the game and flip-flopped constantly on his opinions. He called Chiefs-Dolphins like a robot beholden to the binary code, not a human being who knows how to talk to other human beings.

Needless to say, NFL fans had enough of Garrett during an agonizingly awful broadcast.

Jason Garrett acted like he’d never seen Patrick Mahomes before after a 4th down scramble

Has Jason Garrett ever watched Patrick Mahomes play?

From time to time, we get to hear Jason Garrett call NFL games now. What joy! And judging by the sample size of his announcing work, this is probably something we should be exposed less to.

As the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins battled in impossibly frigid conditions, Garrett tried to add “unique” color to Patrick Mahomes’ play on the field. Mind you, Mahomes is already one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. He has a patent on making clutch plays in the postseason, especially long runs in pivotal situations. We have seen him do it time and again. We have likely run out of original ways to describe Mahomes.

But when Mahomes scrambled for 28 yards on a second-quarter fourth down, Garrett’s analysis of the sequence made it seem like he’d never actually watched Mahomes play. He’s a “sneaky good athlete,” apparently. Really?

It’s been a rough evening for Garrett while filling in as NBC’s color commentator. This description that effectively made it seem like Mahomes is underrated — the NFL’s best quarterback — might take the cake as his worst call.

Why Jason Garrett, not Cris Collinsworth, is calling the Dolphins – Chiefs playoff game on Peacock

Collinsworth isn’t in the booth for the game, and here’s why.

That’s right, the voice you’re hearing alongside Mike Tirico on Peacock (exclusively streaming this week’s Wild Card game) for the playoffs broadcast of the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs is not his usual partner, Cris Collinsworth.

No, it’s former NFL head coach Jason Garrett, and if you’re here, you’re probably wondering why it’s Garrett over Collinsworth.

There’s a really good reason for that. Tirico is actually calling two games this weekend — he’ll be on the mic for Sunday’s Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions game on NBC. And it’s Collinsworth who will join him for that game as usual.

There you have it! Enjoy the playoff game!

Collinsworth/Garrett named worst college football announcing team

Woof.

The relationship between Notre Dame and NBC recently was renewed through the end of the decade. However, the network probably needs to make some serious decisions regarding its announcing team for Irish broadcasts. It should be for no other reason than to appease the viewers.

Awful Announcing recently selected 20 college football broadcast teams and asked its readers to vote on them. Jac Collinsworth and Jason Garrett, the team that has announced Irish games for NBC over the past two years, was one of the teams up for voting.

The results were less than flattering as Collinsworth and Garrett were ranked dead last with the team ranked directly above them not even coming close.

Here’s the website’s interpretation of the team’s ranking:

“The only broadcast team we’ve seen get a score this low is the infamous Joe Tessitore/Booger McFarland/Jason Witten Monday Night Football crew back in 2018. That in and of itself is damning. But overall, there weren’t even many positive vibes for this team. Their percentage of A and B grades was less than half of the team ranked directly ahead of them, and their percentage of F grades was nearly four times higher than the second-highest percentage. This is the second season that Collinsworth and Garrett have called Notre Dame games together, and there will need to be a major step up in year three (if it even gets to that point).”

It’s no secret fans were constantly complaining about Collinsworth and Garrett both seasons they have been on the call, and now, we know exactly how low everyone’s opinion about them is. This is a level of bad that you almost have to try to attain.

Clearly, NBC missed the mark when it brought these two together to call games it had been broadcasting for over 30 years. The only thing to do is shake things up for 2024 because there’s no way it can stick with the status quo without coming off as ignorant, tone-deaf or both.

The network owes it to college football viewers to provide them with a better experience, especially since this relationship with Notre Dame will continue for the foreseeable future.

Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

NFL fans were highly critical of Jason Garrett’s Sunday Night Football broadcast stint

NFL fans were quite lukewarm about Jason Garrett’s time on Sunday Night Football.

Sunday Night Football sounded a bit different than what fans were used to. Instead of the duo of Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth, the latter was replaced by Jason Garrett for Sunday’s matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and Los Angeles Chargers.

According to NBC’s broadcast, Collinsworth was enjoying the remainder of the Thanksgiving holiday with his family. A reasonable excuse to miss Sunday Night Football! So instead, football fans were treated to Garrett in Collinsworth’s stead.

MORE: NFL fans excoriated Tony Romo for excruciating commentary of a great Bills-Eagles game.

Unfortunately for NFL fans, while Garrett started off the night fine, it’s clear the synergy between him and Tirico wasn’t always there.

While it’s hard to follow in the shoes of Collinsworth, NFL fans definitely weren’t happy with his replacement in the form of Garrett.

Why Jason Garrett, not Cris Collinsworth, is calling Ravens – Chargers on NBC Sunday Night Football

Collinsworth isn’t in the booth for SNF.

That’s right, the voice you’re hearing alongside Mike Tirico on Sunday Night Football for the Week 12 broadcast of the Baltimore Ravens and Los Angeles Chargers is not his usual partner, Cris Collinsworth.

No, it’s former NFL head coach Jason Garrett, and if you’re here, you’re probably wondering why it’s Garrett over Collinsworth.

We don’t have a definitive answer, but it would seem that because Collinsworth was on the mic with Tirico on Thursday for the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks Thanksgiving game, maybe Garrett was needed for a second Week 12 contest.

There you have it! Enjoy the Sunday night game.

Awful Announcing documents criticism of Jason Garrett

What did you think of Garrett’s season-opening broadcast?

As the Week 0 game with the highest profile, Notre Dame-Navy drew a large audience hungry for college football. That meant extended exposure for fill-in play-by-play announcer Noah Eagle and color commentator Jason Garrett on NBC.

Garrett and regular play-by-play announcer Jac Collinsworth, who missed Saturday’s broadcast, both have become frequent targets for Irish fans for the quality of their announcing. Without Collinsworth, Garrett received the brunt of criticism for the season opener, and sports media website Awful Announcing kept track of some of the tweets containing that criticism.

One series of tweets Awful Announcing chose to focus on were those saying Sam Hartman hasn’t worked with a running back like Audric Estime when the Seattle Seahawks’ Kenneth Walker III had played with Hartman at Wake Forest. Awful Announcing also highlighted tweets criticizing Garrett’s repeated mentions of the Midshipmen’s “mental toughness.” Still other tweets didn’t like what was perceived as Garrett’s lack of enthusiasm or energy.

We’ve had only one NBC broadcast in 2023, but social media already is in midseason form. There’s no place for critiques of Garrett to go but up. Who knows what’s in store for Collinsworth when he presumably returns for the Irish’s home opener this coming weekend?

Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Social media heavily criticizes NBC broadcast of Notre Dame-USC

Do you share these criticisms?

Notre Dame playing USC always draws a big audience no matter who’s broadcasting it. It’s one of the great rivalries in college football, so even people who don’t have a rooting interest will tune in. That means more eyes than usual are exposed to how NBC covers Irish games. It turns out that might not have been the best thing.

As has been custom for the past couple of years now, the broadcast team of Jac Collinsworth and Jason Garrett was subject to heavy criticism. But there also were noticeable sound issues as the broadcast’s audio kept cutting out at times. Most egregiously, at least for me, NBC’s feed completely cut out for an extended period in the fourth quarter, so I only heard [autotag]Jadarian Price[/autotag]’s kick return touchdown on the radio broadcast. Not a good look for the network.

NBC Sports executives need to take a good look at their Notre Dame broadcasts and correct a lot of things. Irish fans will watch regardless because they don’t have any other way to see home games short of making the trip to Notre Dame Stadium. But that doesn’t entitle NBC to put in half an effort into these games.Viewers deserve a lot better.

Here are only a few complaints from viewers on social media:

Noah Eagle to fill in on NBC play-by-play for Notre Dame-Navy

Prepare for a different sound Saturday.

There has been much criticism about the Notre Dame NBC broadcasting team of Jac Collinsworth and Jason Garrett. Many Irish fans would rather new blood had been brought in this season, and they were disappointed to find out nothing had changed. Well, the broadcasting team will in fact be slightly different for at least one game. Chicago Sun-Times sports media columnist Jeff Agrest has tweeted the following regarding the broadcast for the game against Navy:

Noah Eagle, the son of Ian Eagle, is one of the most talented young broadcasters in the industry. Having previously called both the NFL and college football for Fox, CBS and even Nickelodeon, NBC scooped him up for its new Big Ten Saturday night broadcasts. He also does radio radio play-by-play for the Los Angeles Clippers.

If Irish fans want to keep watching college football after Irish games during the day, this will be a nice preview of what they can expect, at least on NBC.

Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89