Positively Gruden: The Cursing Edition
I can’t tell you how pumped I was for last night’s Patriots-Dolphins game. After dealing with a seemingly endless supply of MNF-branded preseason stinkfests (sometimes two in a week), some “Gruden Love” was finally going to be unleashed in a meaningful regular season game.
Turns out, though, that Ron Jaworski stole all his thunder. First off, Jaws has either consciously or unconsciously appropriated Gruden’s trademark “This Guy” phrase. By my unofficial count, he used 68 “This Guys” last night, so much so that Twitter was consistently mistaking Jaws for Gruden! While this segment, unlike most Gruden-related coverage, seeks to look beyond the relatively benign “This Guys” to the more creative expressions of positivity, I must say that this is a concerning development. Three man booths don’t work unless each announcer brings their own personality to the table. If Jaws is simply going to be gruden with a small g, this crew is going to regress quickly.
Secondly, Jaws had a major slip of the tongue, when after a Chad Henne overthrow in the Fourth Quarter, he exclaimed, “Shit, you have to get rid of this ball, just a split second quicker.” At which point Twitter literally blew up. This is the kind of stuff that gives Twitter a bad name because who the hell cares. Don’t we have better things to do than crucify a man for an accidental swear word? Sure enough, the Twitter firestorm was so fast and furious, that Jaws was forced to issue this awkward apology a few minutes later.
As far as the game, Gruden was having a field day of positivity describing the exhibition put on by the Patriots offense. Though I still struggled to fill out my customary top ten because, frankly, Gruden couldn’t possibly be over the top in describing the Patriots’ performance. Any superlative he used would have been completely appropriate. And as far as the Dolphins, well there wasn’t much positivity to dish out (though they did supply us our #1 gem).
Without further ado:
7. After a Brady- Walker TD, “If you come at Tom Brady with an all-out blitz, he’s got every route in the book. And he will shred you. He’s the shredder.”
6. “I just love the way this guy, Tom Brady, handles the football. Man, this guy does everything right.”
5. More Brady, “You can’t fool perfection”
4. “Brandon Marshall is an angry man after the catch.” Really, you can lose the “after the catch” part.
3. “The only guy that’s not tired is the Patriot offense.” Well, that just doesn’t make sense.
2. After the 99 2/3 yard bomb, “How about that stiff arm? Wes Welker, everybody says all he does is catch two yard passes, everything he does is within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. Take that NFL!”
1. On Cameron Wake, Dolphins DE, “This guy will not quit. He continues to fight, he continues to finish. And at the end of the year, the animal will come out of its cage….He’s studying to be a veterinarian!”
