Wednesday’s question: Who is your favorite NFL announcing team?

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Reporters from around the Tribune family tackle to question of the day, then you get a chance to chime in and tell them why they are wrong.

Joseph Schwerdt, South Florida Sun Sentinel

All the great football announcers were and are minimalists. Ray Scott may be the best ever. Pat Summerall was calm and cool next to blustery John Madden. Dick Enberg, two words: “Oh my!” Verne Lundquist is the best in the business today. Smooth and smart, he doesn’t get in the way of the game. But the best team on an NFL game? It used to be Jack Buck and Hank Stram. Buck’s gravelly play-by-play was pure precision. Stram’s analysis was brilliant. Today it’s the ESPN Monday Night crew. Three in the booth and two sideline reporters? Way too much chatter. But Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Jon Gruden have extraordinary chemistry. Tirico is easy on the ears. Jaws and Gruden are the most knowledgeable combo on the air.

Diane Pucin, Los Angeles Times

Does this make me old? Don’t care. Dick Enberg has been and continues to be my favorite television commentator. On the NFL it’s a good Sunday when Enberg’s voice is on the game. He’s a rational voice on college basketball. But Enberg is great at another of my favorite sports, tennis. His turn of phrase in both football, basketball and tennis is both economical and elegant. Yes, he has a catch phrase – “Oh, my.” But it sounds as if it comes from the heart and not as a calculated attempt to have a signature sentence. Enberg told the San Diego Union Tribune earlier this month he might like to get back to baseball announcing. He did it once with the Angels. They’d be very lucky to get him again.

Keith Groller, Allentown Morning Call

As you get older, you tend to think everything was better in the old days.
But thanks to all of the classic games of the past on TV, you realize this may be the golden age of football broadcasting with an abundance of solid play-by-play guys and analysts who know they have to give you more than just the intricacies of the trap play to make themselves relevant.
Of the many A-list tandems out there, Joe Buck/Troy Aikman, Jim Nantz/Phil Simms and Brent Musburger/Kirk Herbstreit all have developed nice chemistry, but I am very surprised at how fast Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth have grown on me. Perhaps it’s the smoothness of Michaels that makes every partner sound so much better, perhaps it’s that the NFL caters to NBC and always gives it the best games. But I find myself “listening” to more Sunday night games than any others.
And as for the ESPN trio on Monday nights: Too many mouths.