GO FOR 2

You all know SportsCenter, it recently celebrated 30 years of taking up 90% of ESPN’s airtime. Seriously, this show is on the air for about 35 hours a day, which is unique because its basically a 1 hour long show running on a huge loop. So why am I not sick of it? There’s lots of reasons: Solid reporting by experienced and respected insiders, plenty of former pro players and coaches in every major sport (they’re unique too, because they have the only former NFL players who speak English….sorry Emmitt Smith). But the real reason I still love SportsCenter after all these years: they absolutely, in no way, take themselves too seriously.

No, seriously. This was a feature, and it was amazing. (Flickr.com/catalinantohi CCL)

Pictured above was one of SportsCenter’s featured stories this afternoon. Seriously. You may have seen the cool video of the pigeon who appeared to participate in kickoff coverage for the Raiders during their surprise upset of the Eagles on Sunday (shouldn’t the bird be helping out the Eagles? Dirty little traitor). If you haven’t seen the video, then enjoy:

 watch?v=yztN2X6jUOM&feature=player_embedded

Ok, so its a cool video, but why am I making such a big deal out of this? I mean, the video was shown on pretty much every sports show/website/awesome blog I write…Well, SportsCenter took this whole thing a step further. A big, hilarious step further. Remember during NFL draft time when SportsCenter goes in-depth and breaks down a draft prospect? You see where I’m going.

First, they broke down the video, noting “The pigeon shows excellent discipline here, look at that lane responsibility” Not only is this witty, but its correct. The pigeon stays in his lane the whole way down, there’s no way a returner is going to get the corner with him there. The commentary is also doubly clever, because the anchors were breaking this film down in terms of basic football fundamentals (know your assignment, play your gap, do your job) – and in this game fundamentals were sorely lacking from the actual players on the field.

For me the highlight was the player breakdown though. Here’s what you need to know according to SportsCenter:

Name:  Pigeon

Height/Weight:  12-15″ /10-16 ounces

Flight Speed:  28-82 MPH

Lifespan:  2-3 years in the wild, 16 in captivity

Trivia: Used to relay messages during wars

Come on, those last two were priceless. Utterly random, completely unrelated to football while still being relevant, and totally a breath of fresh air from repetetive analysis and breakdown. And yes, they did notice that Al Davis only likes player with speed – so his mid-season signing of “the pigeon” wasn’t really a surprise.