Sometimes all you get is one shot in sports. That goes for in the booth too.
Brian Billick likely lost his gig as a NFL analyst for Fox Sports in part because he stumbled during the Seattle-Atlanta playoff game in Jan., 2013. The network has confirmed Jason McIntyre’s report in the Big Lead that the former Ravens coach won’t be back this fall.
“We simply decided to move in a different direction. We appreciate all of Brian’s contributions over the years at Fox,” said Fox spokesman Dan Bell.
Usually, multiple factors are involved, but don’t discount his shaky performance when Fox awarded him and Thom Brennaman a playoff game after the 2012 season. In the video, you can hear Billick commit a major gaffe, saying Seattle won the game. Atlanta did.
OK, that happens. However, Awful Announcing noted Billick was panned on Twitter throughout the entire game.
Newsday’s Neil Best tweet: “Brian Billick said a lot of really weird stuff during last few minutes of Seahawks-Falcons game.”
All the negative vibes made an impression on Fox. Tellingly, Billick-Brennaman were passed over for this year’s playoff assignment for Kevin Burkhardt-John Lynch. And now he’s out.
Look for Billick to expand his role with NFL Network.
Ed: Longtime admirer of your critiques of sports journalists who traffic too often in thinly sourced speculation and slander. You were one of the few media critics brave enough to hold Deadspin accountable after they wrote a whole story accusing Manti Te’o of faking his girlfriend’s death for publicity. You demand facts and good sources.
It’s a surprise, then, that you would stoop to this level of speculation in one of your articles. “Likely”? “Don’t discount”? As a responsible journalist, you should only go on what the Fox boss tells you. I’m disappointed.
That;s too bad. I enjoyed him and Brennaman. I know it’s all opinion, but when you consider how far down Fox’s baseball color guy slid before his retirement* for a decade or more, or CBS’s #1 football color guy has slid, Fox giving Billick the boot seems somewhat strange — why not bump him down a rank or two to see if he regains his fastball?
* Yes, I know you liked him, but your praise of him overlooked (purposely?) the “To win the GAME… you need to score more RUNS… than the other team” bromides that tended to obscure whatever particular points you thought he was making!