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Jan 3 2008 11:08AM EST

Bryant Gumbel: Worst Sports Announcer Ever?

Move over, Bill Belichick: You are no longer the most hated man in football.

That honor goes to Bryant Gumbel, who has drawn nothing but but yellow flags this year from fans for his miserable performance as the NFL Network's play-by-play announcer.

Following the Patriots perfect-season-clenching victory over the Giants last weekend -- the most-watched regular-season game in 12 years -- sportswriter Richard Sandomir ripped Gumbel to shreds in The New York Times.

"Gumbel, one of the most talented studio personalities of the last 25 years, is struggling to learn what he should be doing after the network's two seasons," wrote Sandomir. "He doesn't see the field well.... His imprecision leads him to fall back on ambiguities."

There was more.

"Gumbel says things that no experienced announcer would.... Gumbel's lack of field vision meant that Collinsworth could have done the two-man job on his own."

And Sandomir is hardly alone in his judgment. The Chicago Tribune's Ed Sherman questioned "Gumbel's ability to call a game" after the Bears-Redskins telecast.

Pro Football Weekly's Barry Jackson wondered, "What's wrong with Gumbel? Where should we start?"

And Bud Shaw of the Cleveland Plain Dealer declared, "[T]here's nothing good about subjecting so much of the country to Bryant Gumbel's play-by-play. Anything but that."

Who knew there'd come a day when sports fans would feel nostalgia for Dennis Miller?

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