Hate Trent Dilfer on MNF? So did Deadspin

by | Sep 17, 2015

Former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer is generally regarded as a very good studio football analyst. His Week 1 appearance alongside Chris Berman on Monday Night Football isn’t getting similar reviews.

The most scathing appraisal yet has come via Drew Magary of Deadspin. On Thursday, he laid waste to Dilfer’s MNF cameo in an expletive-laced announcing takedown for the ages.

“He took the bar for terrible announcing and planted it 50 feet deep into the Earth’s mantle, where no one else can now snake beneath it,” Magary wrote, calling Dilfer the worst color man of all-time.

Ouch.

Look, announcing is ridiculously difficult. The next time you watch a football game, try to say something intelligent right after every play. You’ll find yourself sounding like a rambling idiot most of the time.

Dilfer said some smart things. He’s a smart football guy. Put him in studio with time to dissect a game, and he’s golden. But in the booth, he couldn’t stop screaming about every move Colin Kaepernick made. He also said instincts could be trained, which defies all logic of the word.

Magary explained Dilfer as “a charmless ex-player using phony enthusiasm to cram his credentials down your throat for three hours, spasming out dreck about launch points and 3-technique shading without any real care for the viewer at home.”

He’s not wrong. The average football fan doesn’t care about a quarterback’s “launch point.” And don’t yell through the television at millions of people watching the worst game of Week 1.

More often than not, the best announcers keep it simple, say a lot with very few words and let the game do the talking. Dilfer gave us the opposite. He’ll go back into his comfort zone—the studio—until this time next year.

The few of the best Dilfer on MNF tweets: