If you take Steve Young seriously as an analyst...

[Mr. Scot]

... this makes it sound like you probably shouldn't.

Steve Young does damage control

Quote

 

“My wife hates football, and my kids don’t really care,” Young told Alex Sherman of Bloomberg Businessweek. “I see myself as a deal guy first. I’ve put football behind me. Roger Staubach once told me  — and I’ll never forget it: ‘When you retire, run. Never look back.'”

Sherman explains that Young “may have quit ESPN years ago if not for his private equity partners, who like him to keep a high profile,” and that Young “spends no more than an hour or two at the stadium” preparing for what he’ll say on the air.

“Once the game starts, he barely watches the action,” Sherman writes.

Ouch!

If you want to see the article where he originally made the now disputed comments in context, click here: Bloomberg.com

A source at ESPN defended Young's work ethic, but it'd be valid to ask "What else would they do?". Young has also stated since that he is fully committed to excellence in his broadcasting career.

So do you believe him?

If you were ESPN, would you keep him or dump him?

[countryboi]

if he is not watching the game and only spending an 1 getting ready...how does he not fall on his face? it would seem to me that he should way out his depth next to someone that spends more time getting ready?

[AceBoogie]

13 minutes ago, countryboi said:

if he is not watching the game and only spending an 1 getting ready...how does he not fall on his face? it would seem to me that he should way out his depth next to someone that spends more time getting ready?

It aint hard to fake it. Broadcasters say wrong "facts" all the time with nobody there to correct them. They get so much information fed to them that all he has to do is get there, look at the roster, and google a few key players. 

[Cary Kollins]

Young has been god awful on ESPN for a long time. At least he's owning up to it.

[LinvilleGorge]

21 minutes ago, AceBoogie said:

It aint hard to fake it. Broadcasters say wrong "facts" all the time with nobody there to correct them. They get so much information fed to them that all he has to do is get there, look at the roster, and google a few key players. 

Especially when you're as intelligent and understand football as intimately as Steve Young does.

[Mr. Scot]

I have no trouble believing Young is smart enough to convincingly "fake it".

[Jangler]

Master Thespian!

 

[pstall]

ESPN as a whole is hard to watch. They are doing what all cable channels do and that's get away from their core.

How many talk shows do i need to distinguish yourself from the previous talk show?

First take and the one on FS1A with Skip makes my eyes bleed.

But talk shows are super cheap and they promote the hell out of them on ESPN.

[OneBadCat]

Young is a HOF QB. I'm sure he doesn't have to watch everything to explain a concept or make a comment.

And it's not like sports broadcasting is a rocket science. Formers players at least fug up all the time and don't actually offer that much more insight then a regular broadcaster most of the time.

[outlaw4]

Only an hour or two of prep work? So you're telling me his coworkers spend more time to prepare similar quality of ESPN drek?

[electro's horse]

Yeah the dude has a law degree

it probably takes about two hours of work to prepare for that show

[electro's horse]

Like if I had that job I'd just make it up as I went along, get noticeably drunk, and throw shade at the big 10 every chance I got. 

[pantherclaw]

I've never cared for that monkey's ass.

[Mr. Scot]

4 hours ago, OneBadCat said:

Young is a HOF QB. I'm sure he doesn't have to watch everything to explain a concept or make a comment.

And it's not like sports broadcasting is a rocket science. Formers players at least fug up all the time and don't actually offer that much more insight then a regular broadcaster most of the time.

See, my thing on that front: Like with The Terminator, it's what he does. It's all he does (or at least all he's supposed to be doing).

Pretty sure that for the vast majority of people here, were they found by their employer to be on their job but actually doing something other than their job, said employer would disapprove.

Plus, let's be real. We're not exactly talking about a kid working in a sweatshop for pennies here.

If you're being paid (handsomely) to simply talk about a football game, I don't really think it's out of line to ask that you actually watch the game.