Inside the NFL

HBO's Inside the NFL was my favorite football show. Cris Collinsworth, Bob Costas, Chris Carter and Dan Marino were a good group. (Dan Marino!) Good sports commentary/analysis, good banter among the hosts and well, some rather silly stuff too, but nonetheless, it was something I looked forward to watching every week.

So when they announced that last season was the final season, I was bummed. What could possibly replace Inside the NFL? And then Dana informed me that Showtime had picked up the show, albeit with a new cast of hosts. I was excited.

But man, Inside the NFL on Showtime sucks. Big time. Cris Collinsworth is still a host which is good. We like Cris even though he used to play for the Bengals. Warren Sapp is smart, funny and has good charisma. James Brown is fine. Phil Simms has got to go though. Seriously. He's awful. I've never been crazy about him on the other shows that he does, but now I just plain don't like him. He has no charisma whatsoever. He talks too much, interrupts people and adds nothing to the show. We watched the second episode last night and I could hardly sit through it thanks to Phil. Bring back Dan Marino!

Not to mention that the set of the show looks like crap. They must have been given a tiny budget or something. And what's up with the new female addition, Jenn Brown? The NFL Network has a female host now as well, and don't get me wrong, I'm all for women in football, but do they all have to have that blonde model look? The piece that Jenn Brown did last night was on Fantasy Football which included a segment on women who play Fantasy Football. All bimbos. WTF? Yes, women watch football. No, we don't all wear high heels, half jerseys or cut off t-shirts with plunging neck lines. Gimme a break.

Showtime has a bunch of great shows, but they are not delivering with Inside the NFL. I'll give it a few more tries, but if the quality doesn't improve, I'm done with it.

As for the coming weekend of football, let's hope the Steelers are looking better than they did against the Browns because the Eagles looked pretty damn good against the Cowboys. Granted we won our game, but it was not good football. Let's go Steelers!