Sometimes, the seas part in the sports world and Pardon the Interruption is able to come in at the perfect time to put a crotchety old bow on a big sports story. This week, it was Michael Wilbon and the Arch Manning hype train, and it couldn’t have been better.
Back on air after more than a month away, Wilbon had some thoughts about Week 1 in college football. In particular, the way in which his colleagues insist on covering sports by heightening every moment or character to the grandest possible scale.
From Manning’s dud at Ohio Stadium to Bill Belichick laying an egg in his Tar Heel debut to the mere quantity of ranked teams playing one another, Wilbon felt that sports media blew it all out of proportion. And on Tuesday, he did his best to set them straight.
“I don’t want mass media, major media, networks, including people that we like to call our friends, to just ruin the watching of college football for me … by exaggerating the hell out of everything. By overstating everything,” Wilbon cried out.
“Arch Manning is not Peyton or Eli or Archie, just yet. Just let him simmer a little bit. Jeremiah Smith, he is not Jerry Rice just yet. I heard somebody, who I probably like a lot, probably somebody I covered, say ‘He’s the best college football player I’ve ever seen.’ You know what my recommendation would be? Then watch more college football over the last 50 years. ‘Cause he ain’t the best I’ve seen.”
There is plenty of truth to Wilbon’s complaints. Whereas media has always been accused of sensationalizing stories, sometimes they cover news purely by hyping up its importance. It strips away the context and can become a spitting contest.
In the case of Manning, the ensuing debate largely becomes about whose fault his “underperformance” was and whether he was “overhyped” rather than breaking down Manning’s thought process or why he played poorly.
And as Michael Wilbon noted, there is often no follow-up on the hyped-up moments after they come and go. Instead, it’s just rinse and repeat until the next opportunity to claim something is the biggest or the best.
“Can we just stop? ‘It was the greatest weekend,'” the PTI host added. “All of it was just slobbered over, except the results.”
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.