I'm only a casual NFL watcher but someone explain to me:
1) How the Bengals' DB hit on the Steeler WR in the 3rd quarter was a penalty, when he led with his shoulder and the receiver was not defenseless;
2) Why the Steeler DB's hit on Bernard was legal when he led with his helmet; and
3) MOST OF ALL, WHY JIM NANTZ IS BEING SUCH A STEELER HOMER *****, JUSTIFYING BAD CALLS ON 1 AND 2 ABOVE, AND THEN WHINING ENDLESSLY ABOUT BURFICT'S SACK OF ROETHLISBERGER, WHEN EVERYONE AGREES CONCLUSIVELY THAT IT WAS A LEGAL HIT.
I was rooting for the Bengals anyway, but Nantz's holier-than-thou / *****-*** act has sent me over the edge. Go Bengals - this would be a huge win for them especially the way it has played out tonight.
It's like he can't get out of his own way sometimes. He is unnaturally smooth handling the nuts and bolts of calling a game and the entrances, exits, and transitions of that (why CBS elevated him to head honcho at age 31), but the preening, sanctimonious Nantz inevitably surfaces.
He's always kind of fascinated me in the sense that he seems like an artificial robot sportscaster or something, and I've never been able to figure out whether his saccharine infatuation with the Masters is all him or whether he's just playing to the Augusta National choir. I know that he's close with George HW Bush and remember reading an interview with him several years ago in which he intimated that he wanted to run for public office someday, so I've always kind of been waiting on him to announce he's running for US Senate out of nowhere.
Tonight reminded me of his adulation for North Carolina and Duke and "the way things should be done" and so forth--reminded me of the Magloire/Wojo moment, even though that was more Billy Packer. The Steelers are the establishment team that CBS covers in its feature game 4-5 times a year, and the Bengals are the renegade upstarts upsetting the order of things. And Roethlisberger being the darling...he has amazingly shed his issues from a few years ago.
/time to end my mediation on Jim Nantz