John Madden, the Fraud
Ryan Byrne

Do you ever watch a football game on TV and find the announcers to be obnoxious? How many instances have you thought to yourself, “Wow, they can not be getting paid for this?” Well, John Madden is a picture perfect example of why people hate to watch football on TV. There is nothing that irritates me more than the football commentator, John Madden, and his frustrating little pen showing up on screen while I am trying to watch a football game. I try to enjoy the game as much as I can, but this man takes up half of the time allotted saying ludicrous, off-topic things. Then he tries to account for his ranting by drawing all over the screen with a yellow pen that has brought agony and anguish to football fans worldwide. I watch, and I think of how much of a besetment this individual is and how much more clearly sailing the game would be without him.


One reason why this man pesters me so much is how much he is accepted for the very little aptitude he actually has. In other words, he is very hyped-up. His on-screen doodling and immutable maundering makes him one of the most annoying announcers alive. The guy won a Super Bowl, but anybody that had a steel curtain defense and a lefty quarterback in the seventies was certainly on a trek to win a Super Bowl. Besides, anyone that gets their name stamped on a video game title is definitely overrated. There is nobody in all of football commentary that is more unjustly popular than John Madden.


This grey-haired, football genius gets under my skin even deeper because of the individualistic ideas mumbling from his ancient lips that are totally irrelevant to the current game. My dad and I try to enjoy the games in which he appears, but all we hear is not how good the last fifty-four yard touchdown run was, but rather how the opening kickoff of a game back in 1976 was fun to watch. Plus, nobody cares about what happened in 1976; they care about what they are supposed to be watching, football. That’s why we turn the channel to stations like ESPN, or Fox. Not because we want to listen to that numb nut, but because we want to watch football. He spends so much time talking about how great his Super Bowl season was that he doesn’t have any time to talk about what he is supposed to be talking about, the game. This really ticks me off. So I, and possibly the other millions of football fans, put robot lips on mute, and listen to the radio interpretation of the game.


The very uncommon times that he does talk about the game you either can’t understand what the heck he is talking about or you simply can’t see it because the cyber-ink from that obnoxious little pen I mentioned earlier takes up the whole screen. His job is to show you the game then add smart comments about what you are watching; he obliterates both of his two jobs. Anytime someone takes up my precious TV time to talk how great they are is already one of my enemies. People watch football to be entertained by great athleticism and skill, not to be bored be some guy with a comb-over.