02/20/26
January 30, 2026
SportsFilter: The Friday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
I have never had an issue with Mike Tirico. Why does he get flack from people? But then again, I don't really pay attention to the guys calling the plays unless they stand out as really great or really horrible.
posted by NoMich at 05:42 PM on January 30, 2026
Mike Tirico is generally excellent at whatever he does. The problem I have with sports play-by-play is announcers and especially commentators who go off on lengthy dissertations about one thing or another and forget that there's a game going on. It's annoying to see a play happen and to have no idea who was involved. My wife and I were watching the Patriots vs Texans game, and at one point as Mr. Collinsworth rattled on and on, she turned to me and asked, "Does he ever shut up?" If Mike Tirico has a fault, it's being unwilling to quiet these people.
posted by Howard_T at 03:36 PM on January 31, 2026
I didn't realize that this Super Bowl will be the first one that Mike Tirico has worked. Since he seems to show up in a lot of different places, I had just assumed that the SB was one of those places.
Tirico and Collinsworth get a lot of grief from brave, bold, anonymous online comments section yakkers, but the more that new announcers like Tom Brady enter the picture, the more tolerant and appreciative of Tirico I become.