So I feel bad for anyone who decided to skip the Chargers/Broncos double header Monday Night game. It ended up being one of the most…lets say interesting games of the week. Why was it interesting? A lot of reasons. Let’s start with Rex Ryan.

I was excited to see Ryan in the booth. I never expected him to be good, but I figured he’d at least be entertaining. I expected him to say some weird stuff that would get him kicked out of the booth after one game. I expected him to go off on some inane tangents. I expected weird fun. What we got was just the worst possible announcer: a nervous idiot who clearly didn’t prepare or research as much as he should have and had no idea how to talk. Man, I figured Rex would at least know how to talk. He was terrible. 

It was night and day if you compared him to Tony Romo, who couldn’t have done much better than he did and is already beloved. Rex was terrible. He had trouble saying anything of value, he left a lot of airspace, and (I saw someone mention this on twitter) he seemed like he was trying really hard not to curse and that was taking all his focus. He was boring, he added nothing, and Beth Mowins gave up on him halfway through the broadcast and just started doing everything she could to cover the air.

That’s another shout out: Beth Mowins, the first female announcer on an NFL game. Really happy for her. Considering her situation, she did the best she could. You can’t save a broadcast that bad by yourself. She got hate on twitter, but I thought she was just fine, valiantly pushing forward in a tough spot. She was not put in a position to succeed. She didn’t get an experienced color announcer to bounce off of and basically did it all herself by the end. She was stuck on the ESPN broadcast B team, which gets an F for presentation. The sound mixing was the worst I’ve ever heard for an NFL game. Honestly everything around Beth was such a disaster it’s a miracle she came out okay. I’d be curious to hear her in a booth next to someone who is better than a garbage can at color commentary.

Also: Sergio Dipp. 
Poor guy who doesn’t have English as a first language gets a sideline interview spot and panics on camera, giving an honestly terrible interview that mostly invoked mocking and pity for the poor guy who looked in over his head. Very “Boom goes the dynamite” type situation. Dipp never saw the camera again but he took the jokes in stride on twitter so good for him.

Past all the bizarre production stuff, the game was pretty weird too. Started off pretty even, Broncos started pulling away (T-Seems looks pretty decent!), then two quick bad turnovers by the Broncos later and suddenly the Chargers are only down a field goal. Denver misses an important field goal, then they save the game from overtime by icing the San Diego kicker and then blocking the subsequent attempt. Solid game that likely half of the football fans in the country slept through. It was a good way to end the week.

Week 1 is in the books! Welcome back, football. Can’t wait to see what from this week was just a fluke and what will actually end up being true over the course of the season.

NOTE: I may be very busy these next two days. If anyone has a guest comic about holding a beer, send it in, and if I need to, I will use it. If not, I’ll throw it up as a bonus on Sunday or something.