Miami Dolphins hiring Jason Taylor for prominent role. And NBA, NCAA football media news
Hall of Famer Jason Taylor has been a lot of things for the Miami Dolphins: All-time sack leader, the team’s defensive anchor (with Zach Thomas) for more than a decade and for a time, the figurative face of the franchise.
Now add something else to that list: full-time radio analyst.
Taylor will replace Bob Griese as co-analyst on Dolphins’ radio broadcasts, alongside analyst Joe Rose and play-by-play man Jimmy Cefalo.
Griese, 75, has decided to step aside from the broadcast booth, and Taylor was the obvious choice to replace him.
Taylor did very good work last year in his first season as a game analyst on Dolphins preseason telecasts on CBS-4.
He also has extensive radio experience calling Sunday night NFL games on Westwood One.
Griese, the Hall of Fame quarterback who had a long career announcing college football games for ABC, won’t disappear from the airwaves entirely; he will do a segment on WQAM-560’s pre-game show.
Incidentally, CBS assigned its lead NFL team (Jim Nantz, Tony Romo) to the Dolphins’ Sept. 13 opener at New England.
TUA SPECIAL
Fox and Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa combined on a nine-episode documentary series about his life, with the signature documentary “Tua” airing at 4 p.m. Sunday.
“Tua Talks,” the complementary eight-episode digital series, launched on the new Fox Sports app and FOXsports.com last week, with most of those episodes already available.
A couple of takeaways from watching the Fox-TV program that’s airing Sunday: No surprise, but viewers get a sense of how important family and Samoan culture are to him; that’s an important theme in the show.
He seems to believe that some things are preordained.
“Before I picked up a football my destiny was pretty much made up for me,” he said. “My grandfather’s prophecy was: One day when I grew up, our last name would be known all over the world.”
During one scene, Tagovailoa bemoaned his luck - not only the hip injury but a tornado in Nashville that badly damaged his car the day before he was scheduled to drive to Alabama for a doctor’s appointment.
“Seemed like problem after problem, like everything stacking up against you,” he said.
Viewers see Tagovailoa mourning his grandfather’s death; highlights of his college career at Alabama with commentary from coach Nick Saban and others; his doctors visits in the months after his major hip injury last November (“the rehab process was very difficult for Tua,” said Lyle Cain, one of his doctors); and behind-the-scenes footage from draft day.
We see him dressing for the draft and wearing a treasured family jacket, which has “Tua” on one sleeve and “Man” on the other.
We see his first interaction with former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer several years ago. “You have no discipline playing this position,” Dilfer told him.
“Who is this guy?” Tagovailoa said.
Tagovailoa later hired Dilfer as his personal coach before the draft.
“He went from being terrible at these things to the best I’ve ever seen at these things,” said Dilfer, who’s now a high school coach in Tennessee.
And we see this exchange with Dolphins general manager Chris Grier after Miami drafted him.
▪ CBS assigned lead NFL announcing team Jim Nantz and Tony Romo to the Dolphins’ Sept. 13 opener at New England.
NBA NEWS
NBA playoff ratings are down overall from a year ago but there are legitimate reasons: 1) weekday afternoon games will have that effect of dragging down ratings; 2) August prime-time viewership was overall 14 percent lower than it was in April, and it’s natural that summer playoff games would draw lower ratings than April/May games; and 3) overall TV viewership is down significantly in general.
But here’s the good news for the NBA, according to the league’s research:
Since the beginning of the restart, TNT and ESPN have been the most-watched cable networks during prime time among key demographics, including adults 18 to 49. The NBA has been a big reason for that....
In the first round of the playoffs, NBA games were the top 15 most-watched sports programs among adults 18 to 49.....
Viewership for prime time NBA seeding games on ABC, ESPN, TNT and NBA TV were 22 percent higher than the prime time audience for the 2019-20 regular season on those networks....
Across all networks, average viewership for NBA seeding games was 70 percent higher than NHL playoff games and 88 percent higher than MLB regular season games….
Through Aug. 26, average viewership for Round 1 of the NBA Playoffs is 181 percent larger than NHL playoff games to date….
And with the league acting proactively in the quest for social justice reform, the NBA points this out:
Before the suspension of the season, the NBA TV audience was 42 percent White and 58 percent “Non-White,” according to the league. Since the Disney games began, the NBA’s audience is 43 percent White, 57 percent Non-White.
“Our [NBA] numbers have shown that we have had the highest viewed program of the night,” said Ashley O’Connor, ESPN’s director of programming and acquisitions.
▪ There was no realistic way the NBA could have entirely avoided conflicts with prime-time NFL games during The Finals.
Because ESPN has Monday Night Football, the decision was made to air Game 3 and Game 6 of the Finals (on ABC) opposite Sunday night NFL games (Eagles-49ers in Week 5, Vikings-Seahawks in Week 6).
“I don’t think it’s something we would have chosen if up to us,” O’Connor said of competing with NFL games. “We spoke to our audience research team and attempted to find the sweet spots.”
▪ With Kevin Harlan, Ian Eagle and Spero Dedes all having CBS NFL assignments on weekends and Marv Albert not working in the Disney bubble, TNT will use Milwaukee Brewers TV voice Brian Anderson (who’s solid on basketball) with Chris Webber and Reggie Miller for the Western Conference Finals. ESPN has the Eastern Finals.
Harlan returns to the bubble this week to work several games with Miller, including Game 3 of Heat-Bucks at 6:30 p.m. Friday.
THIS AND THAT
▪ Roy Firestone, one of the great interviewers and sports impressionists of our generation, has a podcast, and we recommend a listen. He had Bob Costas as a guest in this one, and it was pretty compelling.
▪ Personnel notes: Fox hired Westwood One Sunday night NFL announcer Kevin Kugler to replace Thom Brennaman, who was dropped for this season (and potentially beyond) after uttering a homophobic slur on a live microphone during a Cincinnati Reds broadcast…
Vince Carter is joining ESPN as an NBA analyst. He worked summer league games for NBA TV while an active player last year…
Joe Tessitore, replaced by Steve Levy on ESPN’s Monday Night Football, is back doing college games, paired with Greg McElroy. But Sean McDonough and Todd Blackledge will remain the ABC/ESPN No. 2 college football team, behind Chris Fowler/Kirk Herbstreit…
Booger McFarland, who was dropped from Monday Night Football, will be part of ESPN’s MNF pre-game show and ABC’s college football studio on Saturdays. He’s very good in studio...
Tony Dungy will be NBC’s Notre Dame analyst this season, alongside Mike Tirico. Saints quarterback Drew Brees will become NBC’s Fighting Irish game analyst when he retires.
▪ Here’s the partial season college football TV schedules announced by NBC, CBS, Fox and ABC/ESPN.
Couple of notes: CBS will air Alabama-LSU at 6 p.m. on Nov. 14, after the third round of the Masters… ABC’s set prime time games are Clemson-Wake Forest at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 12 and UM-Louisville or Virginia-Virginia Tech on Sept. 19. Others will be added....
Notre Dame is playing an ACC schedule this season, and NBC received permission to air the FSU and Clemson games in prime time...
With the Big Ten and Pac-12 not playing, the schedules are pretty weak before SEC games begin Sept. 26. Instead of Big Ten football, ESPN must settle for games like Cincinnati-Austin Peay in noon windows. early in the season....
With few options available, this Saturday’s ESPN tripleheader is underwhelming: Eastern Kentucky-Marshall; SMU-Texas State and Arkansas State-Memphis, with BYU-Navy on Labor Day night.
▪ Admirable undertaking by CBS, which will allocate the 1 to 6 p.m. Sunday time block this weekend on programming designed to “continue the conversation on racism in sports and society.”
The five 60-minute shows are being presented under the name “Portraits in Black” and James Brown will host.
Here’s my Wednesday piece with lots of on-field Dolphins nuggets.
Here’s my Wednesday UM 6-pack.
This story was originally published September 2, 2020 at 6:31 PM.
