The Draw Play

Brandon Perna of That’s Good Sports released a video a week ago on the decline of Tony Romo as a sportscaster. In it, he made a pretty good point that I hadn’t yet considered in why Tony Romo sucks now. One of the primary reasons a lot of us have gotten sick of Romo in recent times is his incessant glazing of Mahomes. But during pretty much Tony’s entire career as a sportscaster, Mahomes has been the primary face of the league and the Chiefs the premier team. Since Romo works the A team with Jim Nantz, and until a couple seasons ago CBS always covered AFC matchups, Romo would just end up calling Chiefs games all the time. As our fatigue of the Chiefs grew, listening to Romo jizz all over him at every available opportunity just ballooned our resentment of him. This isn’t to say Romo is just a victim of timing and scheduling. Romo’s love for Mahomes is extremely tiring, and here is where I bolster my argument by posting the clip of Romo trying to argue Pat dirt balling a wide open Kelce is a winning play. There is simply no excuse for that call.

By extension, the same problem has infected Collinsworth. Since he covers the premier primetime game every week, he was naturally going to call a lot of Chiefs games in the last decade. He’s not quite as deep in the Mahomes froth as Romo but he’s still noticeable about it. Watching a Chiefs game with either one of these guys was an insufferable experience that only got worse as the Chiefs offense degraded and Mahomes’ play became more indistinguishable from other QBs. It was easy to understand the glaze when Mahomes was doing wild shit every other play. It was tedious when Mahomes adapted to more modern defenses and started just playing effective quick-throw football and the Chiefs offense stalled out every other drive. It was insufferable last year when the Chiefs got blessed by bullshut devil magic and officiating fuckery, and it almost became hilarious this year when Mahomes continued to put up the same level of performance but the bullshit was no longer going their way. Last week Collinsworth started glazing Mahomes and his late-game comebacks and then Kelce dropped the ball into the arms of the Texans and the game ended. A part of me wishes Super Bowl LIX hadn’t been called by FOX last year. Hearing Collinsworth or Romo try to cope with the Eagles putting Mahomes in hell might have been worth it.

Mahomes is dead for now. He tore his ACL and his LCL and underwent surgery to repair them. Estimates for return are still the usual 9 months. 9 months puts Mahomes right at September at the presumed earliest. Knowing Mahomes, he will probably be “ready” week 1. He’s a trooper and possessed of the same ultra-competitive sickness that all the GOATs have. I have no doubts he’ll do everything right, get the best treatment money can buy, and be ready. Will he be the same guy in September? My guess is no. He probably won’t scramble as much for a while. But I would be shocked if he doesn’t start week 1, and we are going to have to suffer all the comeback glazing that comes with it.

For the time being both announcers will have to pivot to the other guy taking up full gigabytes in their gooning folders: Josh Allen. At least Josh Allen is still a really fun watch. Allen has managed to retain that magical chaos in his performances and he doesn’t have the burden of being an overexposed champion. I also wouldn’t be surprised if both guys just keep bringing Mahomes up anyway because they just can’t stop popping boners for him.