So the inevitable has happened and Bryant Gumbel has parted ways with the NFL Network, whose ownership he ripped on his other TV gig, HBO's "Real Sports," one week before calling his first game for the network. WHen Gumbel bit the hand that was feeding him, you knew the arrangement was going to be trouble. That was confirmed as soon as he opened his mouth without the aid of a teleprompter and sounded like ... a guy who had never called a football game in his life.
After that debacle, the NFL should be looking for an upgrade. Problem is, the league presumably can't go cherry-pick talent from its broadcast partners at NBC, CBS and ESPN. But what if it could have a talented non-NFL announcer from one of those networks, make it broadcasts network-quality ... and score a PR coup in the process?
Gentlemen of the jury, I give you ... Pam Ward.
Not just because she used to toil at a station where I now contribute (WBAL), but because Pam Ward is the best play-by-play talent not calling games for either MLB or the NFL. And because if you're going to make history, you'd better make it with somebody who won't embarrass you, will work hard and keep her head down and make her critics seem like very small-minded (and membered) people.
I have a recording of Ward calling the Division III NCAA football championship a few years ago. It was an historic game, in that it pitted John Gagliardi, the Methuselah of college football, who had earlier that season broken Eddie Robinson's all-time victories mark, against Larry Kehres of Mount Union, which entered the game with a 55-game win streak. As the game's momentum shifted slowly but decisively away from Mount Union and toward the Johnnies, Ward was terrific. She saw what was happening and used it to her advantage, calling the game with both excitement and intelligence.
I know that Doctor Johnson once said that seeing a woman preaching was like seeing a dog standing on its hind legs; the wonder is that it happens at all. And in the male-dominated culture of sports chatter, the harshest evaluations Ward would be likely to get are those that are generally complimentary to her but have the vaguely dismissive Deadspin tone of, Huh. A woman calling a game.
UPDATE: Deadspin's editor has written in with a clarification.
But here's why NFL Network should make her a deal anyway: Pam Ward is going to be miles better than Bryant Gumbel. With that act to follow, Pat Summerall would even sound good right about now. And the stakes are low. NFL Network isn't even in half of the homes with cable TV. She'll probably work cheap. The league can rent her for football season, then give her back to ESPN in January for basketball games. Small downside, potentially big upside. What's not to like?
The only fly in the ointment might be Cris Collinsworth. The NFL Network's color man has given every indication of being an arch-traditionalist, from his towel-snapping demeanor with other jocks on sports talk programs to his tone-deaf defense of Rush Limbaugh on Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" ("Is he really the worst person in the world? The whole world?").
Keith Olbermann, on reading that, wrote in with an informed defense of Collinsworth.
Also, there are rumors out there that Collinsworth wants the PBP job for himself. The NFL would certainly not be wrong to give it to him. He's one of the better talents out there. But he'd have to give up some of his folksy opinionating to focus on the game action, and that's a role better suited to a PBP lifer like Ward.
Plus, picking Pam Ward as the new face of the NFL Network might help the league in contract negotiations with those obstinate cable companies. We're the football channel women like to watch! Well, it couldn't hurt.
Related: "Pam Ward is by far the best caller in college football"
