Sam Darnold may have been seeing ghosts on the field against the Patriots, but are we sure Greg Gumbel and Adam Archuleta were watching the game? Viewers were forced to live in the CBS crew’s alternate reality during this three-hour slog, where Jakobi Meyers is Mac Jones’ favorite red zone target and special teamer Justin Bethel came up with a pick-six.
What a world.
The dumbfounded duo’s first egregious error of the day came late in the first half, when Achuleta erroneously declared Meyers is the Patriots’ go-to-guy near the end zone, despite the fact he doesn’t have a single touchdown reception. They show Meyers’ dad at almost every game visibly clamoring for his son to get on the board. It appears as if Archuleta, a former safety, failed to watch tape before his assignment — or consult a stat sheet.
About an hour later, Archuleta issued an on-air correction for his inane analysis. “You ever say something kind of stupid on television?,” he asked Gumbel. “I said earlier that Jakobi Meyers was Mac Jones’ favorite target in the red zone. I had third down in my mind. Jakobi Meyers hasn’t caught a touchdown pass yet this season, so probably not his favorite target. But we all make mistakes, right?”
Kudos to Archuleta for admitting his blunder, and here’s hoping the practice spreads to other error-laden broadcasters, including his partner. Gumbel never corrected himself for mistaking J.C. Jackson with Justin Bethel when Jackson got his pick-six. Gumbel had plenty of opportunities, too. Jackson ran it back 88 yards.
It often seemed like Gumbel was calling the game on delay, given his struggles identifying players and describing the action. On the Patriots’ first drive, they handed the ball to Brandon Bolden on a 2nd-and-25, and the bruising back picked up 16 yards. But crazily, Gumbel said Bolden got the first down.
That inexplicable error — down and distance is on the monitor — was a harbinger of things to come. Gumbel was slow to the call.
It took him nearly entire series to realize Brian Hoyer was in for mop-up duty. “We see that Brian Hoyer will be the quarterback when we come back,” he said before the two-minute warning.
Hoyer was under center for the previous three plays.
One of the more vapid moments of the telecast came in the second quarter, when Gumbel acknowledged that Archuleta played under Carolina defensive coordinator Phil Snow at Arizona State. The prolonged photo montage of the 2000 Sun Devils even caused CBS to miss a play.
Yet, Archuleta didn’t tell us anything about Snow, or even share an amusing anecdote. When Gumbel said Panthers coach Matt Rhule wondered whether he or Archuleta had more “Phil Snow stories,” the NFL vet demurred.
“It’s close,” Archuleta said.
The game was not close, prompting Gumbel to correctly label the affair a “comedy of errors” following Darnold’s interception to Jamie Collins. That phrase described every aspect of Sunday’s game, from the field all the way up to the booth.
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