Marcus Spears’ reaction after Ryan Clark’s ‘the pound game’ line drew attention

All sports wind up with some double entendres from time to time. Football certainly does, and the latest example of that came on Monday’s installment of NFL Live on ESPN. There, while talking about the Dallas Cowboys’ running game, analyst Ryan Clark described that as their “pound game.” And that prompted quite the facial expression from fellow analyst Marcus Spears, sitting next to him. (Clark’s comment is at 0:06 below, Spears’ reaction is shown on camera at 0:09.)

“Even though the run game, I mean the pass game, was working in the way it was, they ran the football over 40 times. The pound game, as the people said, was still strong. And when you can have that sort of physicality and allow Dak Prescott to play that efficiently, you have to give kudos to [head coach] Mike McCarthy and his playcalling. Also, [OC Brian] Schottenheimer on the work he’s doing during the week implementing the game plan.”

Spears then overcomes his facial expression to provide serious analysis, agreeing with Clark. But that “pound game” line was definitely noticed by Spears, and it was noticed by a lot of the internet as well (even with some of that coming on a NFL Live replay Tuesday night):

https://twitter.com/MoTreJaeCi/status/1704494642966708604

Swagu wanted to him him with the “Ayooo” but had to remember he was on ESPN right quick 😂

— Tre Sneed (@TreOfficial13) September 20, 2023

ESPN is not generally known for film analysis of the pound game, something usually reserved for channels with higher age ratings. But this was certainly a funny NFL Live moment, and helped showcase some of the chemistry there that Spears has spoken about. (And it was a funny NFL Live moment that didn’t revolve around a bizarre non-football take from Dan Orlovsky.) And perhaps Clark is coming for the NSFW football commentary title jointly held by Robert Griffin III and Cris Collinsworth.

[Awful Announcing on Twitter]