By Associated Press
“My very first thought is it will be Washington the whole game,” Simms told The Associated Press on Monday.
Simms will work the Thursday night package the network acquired this season and will have Giants-Redskins on Sept. 25. He isn’t taking sides in the debate over whether Washington’s nickname is offensive or racist. But he says he is sensitive to the complaints about the name, and his instincts now are to not use Redskins in his announcing.
“I never really thought about it, and then it came up and it made me think about it,” Simms added. “There are a lot of things that can come up in a broadcast, and I am sensitive to this.”
His broadcast partner, Jim Nantz, says it is “not my job to take a stance.”
NBC’s Tony Dungy, one of the most prominent voices in the league as a Super Bowl-winning coach and now as a studio commentator, plans to take the same route as Simms.
“I will personally try not to use Redskins and refer to them as Washington,” Dungy said in an email. “Personal opinion for me, not the network.”
By Dom Cosentino
"I told our PR department this summer: I haven't used that nickname on the air in three years," said Gumbel, the No. 2 NFL play-by-play voice for CBS Sports. "It's just a personal choice; I just didn't feel like I needed to call a news conference and announce it to everybody."
Both CBS and Fox, the networks that carry the NFL's Sunday afternoon games, have left it up to their on-air talent to decide whether to use Washington's nickname during telecasts. Gumbel only admitted he's refrained from using the name because NJ.com asked him about it.
It is not known how many of Washington's games, if any, Gumbel has worked the last three years. CBS's Sunday afternoon package includes games involving AFC teams, plus interconference when the AFC team is on the road. Gumbel avoided using the nickname even once during his brief interview with NJ.com.
For more on the subject, see:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-sports-bog/wp/2014/09/16/redskins-and-broncos-fans-start-separate-petitions-to-ban-phil-simms-from-calling-games/
Redskins and Broncos fans start separate petitions to ban Phil Simms from calling games
“My very first thought is it will be ‘Washington’ the whole game,” Simms said of how he’ll handle the Redskins name during the broadcast of that game.
That’s a disturbing thought to a number of Redskins fans, including some from the Facebook group “Save the Redskins,” who started a petition on Change.org to remove Simms from any future Redskins’ broadcasts.