Brian Baldinger is Nearly an Anagram for Brainless Lingerer

Brian Baldinger is the lamest football analyst on television. The purpose of the words that came out of his mouth in the Redskins v Rams telecast yesterday was to fill space rather than provide insight. For Baldinger to say that Joe Gibbs doesn’t know today’s game is ludicrous. After I complained about Baldinger to my wife for the sixth time during the telecast, she left the room. She was tired of hearing it from me.

The stunner, though, was this: At one point, Baldinger said that Gibbs cannot win in the NFL today only scoring 17 points a game like he did in his first tenure because the offenses have really opened up. Huh? Does Baldinger check the facts before a broadcast? Does he realize that the 1983 Redskins set a NFL record by scoring 541 points—almost 34 points per game—which wasn’t broken until Minnesota barely beat it in 1998 with 556 points?

Joe Gibbs’s Redskins still own second place in the all-time, single-season scoring category. This might provide some perspective for him: Miami never scored 541, not even when they had Marino to Duper and Clayton. San Francisco never did it, not even with Roger Craig and Montana to Rice. No team led by Brett Favre ever did it. The Broncos with Elway and Terrell Davis never did it. The Greatest Show on Turf never scored that many (although they came close). The Colts with Manning, Harrison, and James never did it. What is really remarkable is that the Redskins set that record before it was a penalty to breath on a quarterback and look askance at a wide receiver.

Oh, and a sampling of some of Gibbs’s other seasons confirms what knowledgeable fans already know: 1984: 27 points per game; 1986: 23 PPG; 1987: 24 PPG; 1990: 24 PPG; 1991: 30 PPG. He scored less than 20 PPG in two seasons: 1992, which was the last year of his first tenure, and 1985, which was his worst scoring year at 18.6 PPG.

Another favorite of mine came when Baldinger said Arrington’s knee is not healthy and said “look at him limp to the sideline.” A few minutes later, they showed Arrington sitting alone on a table on the sideline, laughing and joking with the cameraman and swinging his legs under the table. It was a miracle recovery.

I have been surprised to find that Fox’s best analysts are former Cowboys Aikman and Johnston. I would much rather listen to crowd noise in 5.1 stereo than listen to Baldinger analyze another Redskins game.