Rambling Thoughts on Monday Night Football:

Obviously Terrell Owens is controversial and Tiki Barber is telegenic, so we are going to hear about it, but does the game really have to TOTALLY revolve around those two facts? Last night’s Giants vs. Cowboys game devolved into Jesus vs. Satan, with Kornheiser even calling Owens “the Devil” at one point and acting as if Tiki is, all of a sudden, the NFL’s version of the Second Coming.

Putting aside ESPN’s all-day pregame coverage, during the actual game there was at least four T.O. montages dealing with his propensity for causing trouble. Then literally every time he came off the field and had a discussion with his teammates, we had to watch it. You mean the team’s main receiver is having a conversation with his QB? That’s strange, that never happens. Why would they ever talk during the game?

Tony Kornheiser played right into it, claiming T.O. could “blow up” at any moment. I thought he was being facetious at first, drumming up the hype for laughs, until he repeated it with a straight face ten more times and narrated the “Let’s Sum Up T.O.’s Craziness” segments each go around.

On the other side, they must have showed 20 minutes worth of meaningless Tiki Talk throughout the broadcast. Then we got a tour of his house, heard about his mother and extended family from Michelle Tafoya, and then listened to an extended discussion about his future in broadcasting. Every time he got the ball it was, “Tiki Barber rushes for another first down. Boy, is he a credit to the human race!” (Cut to flattering personal story).

Yes, we get it. Tiki Barber is a nice guy. Can we concentrate on the football game?

ESPN’s attempt to turn everything into a soap opera and tug our emotional strings left everybody who tuned in for the actual action wondering what was going on. Lavar Arrington got carted off the field and we first received information about his season ending injury from the ticker on the bottom of the screen. Then star defensive end Osi Umenyiora went down and we got no further update on his injury. Michael Strahan tied Lawrence Taylor’s Giants record for sacks, yet it was only mentioned once when it happened and then got dropped for the rest of the coverage. Never mind Strahan was dominating the game all over the field: tipping balls for interceptions, sacking the quarterback multiple times, and stopping runners behind the line of scrimmage.

Good news though. Last night’s game was the highest rated show in the history of cable, beating out an Al Gore/Ross Perot debate on NAFTA from over 10 years ago. So now every week ESPN can try to dumb down their broadcast by taking the lowest common denominator and just repeating it over and over again until the viewers are tossing and turning in their sleep, mumbling things like, “Man, Tom Brady is a great leader!” or “Wow, that Chad Johnson sure is off the wall!” They won’t remember the final score the next day, though, because ESPN will probably forget to show it.

Ignoring ESPN’s glaring need for new producers, one thing is for certain: The attention does deserve to be on the Tiki Barber, the football player. That is now becoming clear to anyone who doesn’t watch the Giants on a regular basis. His seventy straight games leading a particular team in rushing is an NFL record. Second is Barry Sanders at 68. He is 3rd all time in rushing yards/attempt, the gold standard in measuring running backs’ worth, behind the two greatest runners of all time, Jim Brown and Barry Sanders. He is also only one of only four backs to have 10,000 receiving yards and 5,000 rushing yards. The others are Marcus Allen, Marshall Falk, and Walter Payton, all Hall of Famers. That should be enough to get himself into Canton one day.

That being said, the Giants are in good hands next year with Brandon Jacobs. That guy is an absolute BEAST. He plowed through half of the Cowboys team for that key 4th down score then he almost snapped Terrence Newman’s legs in two when Newman tried to get in his way early in the fourth quarter. At first, he was planning on tackling Jacobs then decided the best move was to just jump out of the way or risk a career crippling injury. Unfortunately, we won’t hear anything about Jacobs on Sportscenter because they are too busy talking about why the Cowboys lost and all the controversy in Dallas instead of discussing the more relevant news in relation to the rest of the NFL: how the Giants absolutely dominated.

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer