Tank McNamara by Bill Hinds for December 01, 2023

Exactly. True sports fans wouldn’t miss them, although a little eye candy isn’t too bad sometimes.

Charissa Thompson said this, looks like Hinds did a good job at sketching her in the background of the frames. She has actually had a nice run in front of the cameras as has Erin Andrews. As far as ad-libbing, she is definitely not the only side-line reporter to do this, male or female.

The Tampa radio guys usually quote the same garbage from Todd Bowles week after week at half time and after the game and I honestly do not know if they are just winging it or if the dude actually says the same thing over and over again. Like at the half: “We need to focus more and cut down on those penalties, oh and we need to score more points” and after the game: “We had some great practices in the week but we made some crucial errors which hurt, I forgot I had 3 time outs to burn, I do not like explosive plays on our offense because it can wear down our defense when they spend more time on the field…. blah, blah blah…”

Anyhow ladies like Ms Thompson, Erin Andrews and others often take one’s mind off of the score if your team is not doing very well.

I love how Tank admits to just ad-libbing as well in panel 2. Good one Hinds!

As eye candy, they are very important.

Some in sports media are trying to paint her as the Jayson Blair of sports journalism.

To which I generally respond with: How many coaches whom she’s made up quotes for have called her out (then or now)? THAT is how unimportant this whole nothingburger is.

The mute button is invaluable.

Is this the opportunity to dump ALL sideline/dugout “reporters”?One can only hope, about the most useless part of any sports broadcast.

Something you won’t have to worry about, Tank…you’re important to us!

Don’t worry Tank, you’ll always be important to me.

Coaches never say anything important in those interviews. They never answer the questions.

I seriously doubt any coach (or player for that matter) has ever come back and said… “Hey, I never said that.” Those interviews are so unimportant to them, they probably don’t remember anything they say. Neither do they ever actually watch them after the game. I don’t know, but I’m guessing they are compelled to do them by the NFL or the networks, much the like NCAA requires coaches to make themselves available for their own reporters at halftime. Except the NFL coaches aren’t surrounded by state troopers when they do them. (Never figured out that one either).

Why doesn’t anybody ever tear their Hercules Tendon?

Football teams who get clobbered spend all their time thinkingup weaselly alternative words for “clobbered”

How about saying the truth. "If it wasn’t for us (insert loosing teams name here), teams like the Panthers, or the Patriots wouldn’t have any wins.

Exactly why I read this comic (and have been for years), because it mocks the so-called ‘self-importance’, and "heroic’ status of sports ‘stars’, especially those in kneeling ball.

Tell me what is going to happen, then what is happening, then what happened which was not what you originally said would happen…

A lot of those questions asked by sportcasters are redundant – and the answers are equally stupid.

Maybe she consulted with Bob Uecker. At slow points in the game, he would ‘report’ what some fan or fans were doing in the stands.

True story: The other night, Tennessee’s men’s basketball coach was aghast that at halftime, lower-rated North Carolina was leading 63-19. Asked what he’d do to avoid being embarrassed in the second half, he said maybe he’d commit two technical fouls so he’d be ejected and wouldn’t have to watch.

Mr. Rivera head coach of the Commies fired Del Rio, his defensive coordinator to make changes, but way past the first half of the season.

Outraged because now they’re gonna have to go get a real job.

I think the sideline reports are valuable when something happens on the field, like an injury, about which the sideline reporter can gather information to feed to the commentators in the booth. But I’m glad she showed how utterly pointless the halftime coach interviews are: she was able to get away with making them up because they’re so predictable and content-free. I bet the coaches were just as happy not to have to waste their time with them and just have her say the meaningless platitudes that they’d be saying anyway!