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Sunday, October 24, 2010

Is former Cowboy Aikman unbiased when announcing Redskins games?

For some unknown reason, Fox Sports has had former Dallas Cowboy quarterback Troy Aikman doing color commentary on Washington Redskins games this year... and Redskins fans aren't happy about it.

In Sunday's 17-14 victory over the Bears, Aikman several times lobbied for calls that would help Chicago. For instance, he kept saying that DeAngelo Hall should have been penalized for excessive celebration for going down to both knees after a 92-yard interception return for a TD (which ultimately was the game winner). See the accompanying photo.

A guy makes a one-handed catch and runs 92 yards with it for a score and he wants to talk about his going to his knees. With all the jerk celebrations that go on around the league, he says it would have been ok had he gone down on one knee but not two. "Going to two knees there, I think that should have been a flag," he said.

A couple of years ago, Boomer Esiason called out Aikman for being pro Cowboys. "You would have thought the Arizona Cardinals weren't even in the building," Esiason said. "The bias that was coming from him yesterday was stunning. I couldn't believe some of the things he was saying."

He particularly blasted him for propping up Dallas QB Tony Romo.

One Redskins fan from Greensboro had this to say online. "He is a forever a Cowboy, We are the Redskins. I would hate to think I had to commentate a Cowboys game. I would totally suck. Hate would prevail."

Others say the play-by-play guy Joe Buck is even more anti-Redskin than Aikman and that Daryl Johnston, another former Cowboy who covered a lot of Redskins games in past years, is the worst of the three. I suspect a lot of announcers, even if they aren't ex-Cowboys, don't like the Redskins because of controversial owner Dan Synder.

I actually like Aikman as a person but he does seem to be rooting for the other team sometimes when calling Redskins games. I understand that Buck, Aikman and Pam Oliver are considered the top announcing crew and the Redskins have been in some big games against good opponents. Other than that, I'm not really sure why Fox insists on having ex-Cowboys doing Redskins games. I doubt very seriously that Cowboys fans would put up with Joe Theismann doing their games every week.

2 comments:

  1. Troy Aikman made a lot of negative Redskin comments during the Eagles' game. He talked about the Skins should have been called for pass interference on just about every pass they defended. One he even had to correct himself and say, "well, initially I thought it was pass interference but that was a good play." He is very anti-Washington though. Maybe he's still ticked off that his career came to an end at the hands of Washington and Levar Arrington. I guess I would be too. Roger Staubach had a brief commentary career when CBS had the NFC. I couldn't stand listening to him do the Redskins' games as he referred to them as "Wur-shun-ton."

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  2. Aikman is usually a good analyst--except when he does Redskins games. Joe Yuck is worse. One Aikman comment on Chris Cooley was particularly ignorant: "Chris Cooley, who is not known as a good blocker, makes a nice block here." WHAAAA?! Cooley's Pro Bowls were for receiving AND blocking. Aikman--what a jack wagon.

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