Sat, Dec 03, 2005 page19

• Madden needs new partner

  • NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
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  The talent search to find a play-by-play partner for John Madden starting next season on NBC's Sunday night football broadcasts is in its sixth month.

  It would have been over long ago had Al Michaels not decided to follow Monday Night Football from ABC to ESPN. But Dick Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Universal Sports, has plenty of time and is evidently in no hurry.

  "Dick and John are close," said Sandy Montag, Madden's agent. "They have a relationship that goes back to 1982 when Dick was doing Saturday Night Live, and there's a mutual respect. This is a group effort, and at the appropriate time, we'll look at all the options." NBC had no comment.

  

  Colts quarterback Peyton Manning drops back to pass during the first quarter against the Steelers in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Nov. 28, during one of the last remaining Monday Night Football broadcasts on ABC in the US.

  PHOTO: AP

  Michaels' decision to go to ESPN and the astronomical odds against Bob Costas's leaving NBC's proposed studio program underscores the lack of other great play-by-play voices available to work with Madden, who has benefited from working with classic sports voices like Michaels and Pat Summerall. And Jim Nantz of CBS and Joe Buck of Fox are spoken for contractually.

  So who is left?

  The logical, tantalizing answer is a nontraditional one that has been speculated upon since first being raised in June in Newsday: Cris Collinsworth, who got out of his contract as the co-No. 1 analyst with Troy Aikman in the Fox football booth in order to wait a season before becoming Costas' partner in NBC's studio program.

  A Madden-Collinsworth pairing would be a fascinating opportunity to hear two of the best analysts engage in the ultimate football conversation without a third voice between them (although one might argue that Buck nicely mediated the differing styles of Collinsworth and Aikman).

  Collinsworth and Madden are separated by a generation: the former is 46, the latter, 69; one is a former wide receiver, the other a former coach and hugely popular corporate pitchman whose latest client is Verizon Wireless.

  Madden takes his bus to games, but Collinsworth flies.

  Madden is foremost a full-field visionary, a fully developed character whose critical sword is less pointed than Collinsworth's.

  Madden long ago redefined the booth analyst's role at CBS and Fox, where he was the model for attempts to create a corps of baby Maddens to back him up -- as if such analytic clones could be developed by network fiat.

  Through his post-playing career as a game and studio analyst (and as co-host, with Costas, of HBOs Inside the NFL), Collinsworth has become one of the most articulate former athletes in sportscasting; he is unable to escape his affliction for candor, and watching him on the HBO program, one can see that he understands timing, narrative and how to draw out others.

  But it would not necessarily be a simple transition for Collinsworth. Even if NBC's goal is to create a joint venture in analysis -- a master class from different vantage points, even a weekly debate -- Collinsworth would have to master play-by-play fundamentals, which Michaels plies so adroitly.

  He would have to learn the mechanics of play-calling, which he is aware of from working with Buck and others like Marv Albert. He must act swiftly on the suggestions of a producer talking in his ear; digest and relate multiple story lines; pay heed to the spotter and statistician; know when to look at the TV monitor and the field; engage Madden in amiable debate; modulate his voice depending on the game flow; and give dramatic voice to scoring plays.

  If Collinsworth takes the job, it would seem NBC would want him to learn the play-by-play role and simultaneously diminish some of it if the notion of this new paradigm of two big-name analysts talkin' is to take hold.

  Collinsworth would have to do all this in prime time even as he and Madden try to forge a rapport and pursue their conversation about the game before them and those that were played earlier that day.

  Being a leading analyst, while not easy, has fewer moving parts than play-by-play. Generally, the analyst speaks during the breaks between plays, assessing strategy, picking apart replays and wielding a Telestrator stylus.

  There is risk in all this: Taking Collinsworth from the studio would weaken that program (there are no comparable replacements) and if his transformation in the booth were not smooth and rapid, the Sunday evening broadcast, which Ebersol sees as the successor to Monday Night, might stumble. How well Collinsworth balances his characteristic pungency -- a trait that would be a shame to lose -- with his play-by-play learning curve would be a crucial element in the pair's success.

  Madden is savvy enough about television, and his image as a performer, to know that working with Collinsworth would be a fitting third act in a career that flourished with the terse and wry Summerall then advanced easily to the loquacious Michaels, who long ago became a part-time analyst. Working with Collinsworth would be a challenge worth embracing.
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