Can’t stand the commercials, too.

is in the ear of the beholder. Cris Collinsworth is a prime example. Ask any Bengals fan and they'll tell you how biased he is toward the Steelers, and how when Ben was playing he just couldn't shut up about him. How his endless praise of Ben was sickening. Now ask a Steelers fans how biased he is against the Steelers. I think any praise for an opponent, especially a rival, just irritates some fans to the point they hear the bias they want to hear.

Having said that, I'd swap any of the broadcast teams working today for Dick Enberg/Merlin Olsen in a heartbeat.

I heard Buck speak about this years ago. He/they really do attempt to be impartial. I blame the networks and their producers when bias surfaces since they’re more likely to promote a team because of market share or nationwide popularity.

I miss Enberg too. A lot. And I’ve always thought Al Michaels did a decent unbiased job as well. Sorry to hear he was edged out of calling these playoffs.

His voice sounds very nasally to me, and he just yammers incessantly. He completely distracts from the game and he's always talking about a "storyline". I think that's a huge part of the problem. He can't focus on the actual series of downs going on (none of the current announcers can). He's always referring to something else, like we care.

There are a ton of problems with football announcing right now. Aikman is biased, so is Tony Romo, and so is Joe Buck (or he was during baseball). I know that there is unconscious bias. We see it with refs all the time (sometimes towards the home team and sometimes, especially in basketball, for or against certain players). It seems that in the off season they could address this.

I think the bias is connected to this obsession with stats. It means the announcers are not just talking about the game going on. Sure, a little history is fun, but it's stuff like "the QB hasn't thrown an interception at home for 15 quarters", then the QB will promptly throw an interception, and they'll guffaw about the "announcers jinx".

The other problem is this unholy wedlock between the pro leagues and sports gambling. They are always talking about the line, and now they even promote betting during the game.

If they would just say stick to the game, it would help. I was watching clips of Keith Jackson yesterday and wow, do I miss him. Now we get Gus Johnson with his stupid nicknames ("Maserati Marv"!) who is so pleased with himself he can't stand it, or that jack of all trades Chris Fowler who first names all the big time players and sounds as if he has a copy of "Football for Dummies" open in front of him so he can throw in technical terms.