Unengaged by news or analysis, the viewer is left to stare at Florio's complexion and let his mind wander. Instead of someone like Collinsworth or Dungy breaking down film, Florio reveals that some vampires aren't sexless teens, sexless Victorians or street-brawling brutes who also have sex. For some, the Dark Gift manifests as little more than looking like a pallid, venial, social-climbing CPA who apparently cannot die.This isn't entirely fair to Florio. If he could glitter in sunlight, we'd at least think of him as a lovable, portable rave. And it's true that his site, MikeFloriosExtremeFootballZone.com (I'm guessing), breaks some news among the rumors that it breaks and then forgets about when they get embarrassing. He occasionally even mounts the righteous steed of Costasness, but that doesn't work out too well. Some people are just too small for that ride.
So when Mike runs down the latest football news that was summarized during halftimes, gamebreaks and color commentary during that day's games — feeding bullet-pointed nuggets you can find just by reading, say, Richard Dietsch's Twitter feed — you start to wonder what the point is. If you are the sort of person for whom an injury to Brandon Marshall manifests in a joyful or sad expression on your face, you're the sort of person who already knows about it by 7:00 p.m. Eastern.
Eventually, staring at Florio is like looking at the NBC matrix: behind his suit and the set and the lights is a greenbacked source code, dripping down your TV picture, dissolved into waste by the oblivion that is the bottom of the screen. By the time he appears on the postgame show to reiterate aggregated Twitter newsbits from the pre-game and from the rest of the day, it's impossible not to feel that you are staring at a football-quoting Wikipediatric.
Given the above, it's time that Florio stop offering the Wikipedia of sports news and instead become a Wiki newscaster. As long as his information is crowd-sourced to this degree, we should exert some level of control. Since Florio's stories are invariably anyone else's, they might as well be ours. If anything, it can only increase the potential entertainment factor. Look for Mike to break the following stories next week, about the league and himself:
• Packers' Greg Jennings was injured when a defensive player elbowed him in the butthole, so Jennings will be out two weeks with a butthole.
• Martin Gramatica once jumped so hard at the chance to leave our club for being Cool Spies that he accidentally broke my heart.
• DeMarco Murray will be out with Dance Fever.
• Early reports indicate that Plaxico Burress has accidentally shot himself in the other leg inside Tom Dempsey's Club Foot.
• The FAKE AND GAY Eagles are still in the playoff hunt after beating The Butt-Tards today, 420-69.
• Team sources say that Albert Haynesworth's contract rider requires a specific type of club sandwich — one involving pancakes, foie gras, and entire boneless turkeys — be provided to him at halftime of each game.
• Haynesworth and his agent have denied the rumor, citing a handshake agreement with the team's GM that he be provided with an oblong pie made of "phyllo dough wrapped around every kind of dark meat stuffed inside of every kind of white meat," which he calls, "The Boof Pennington."
• To reach competitive balance with large-market teams and their TV contracts, Jerry Jones demanded that the NFL increase the cost of Mustache Rides to $20.4 billion.
• Meanwhile, sources close to Rex Ryan and his wife did say, "Zeppelindor truffles. Mega-ass 420.Hitlerballs."
• Despite NFL scheduling to the contrary, the Tampon Bay Fuckinqueers lost to the New Fagland Gaytriots, "1488 to Over 9,000" in a game played inside my mom.
• Critics of Ben Roethlisberger mention that he... wait a minute. None of this part of the Wiki was altered. I can't read this.
• Terrell Owens admitted to training for a 2012 comeback by sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber with "Jesus' clothes" and also "bones of the saints, like Theresa of Ávila and Kirill of Beloozero."
• The innocent Cowboys cheerleader tackled by Jason Witten? Turns out she has ties to known Basque separatist groups! Bang it here for more.
• Jason Garrett was fired by 90,000 text messages after Jerry Jones ordered his number be posted to the Jumbotron.
• Matt Hasselbeck is now totally hairless, like one of those cats.
• Remember the movie Tremors? Now, remember Brett Favre's penis? Check back tomorrow at ProFootballTalk.com for something big. Or not.
• It doesn't take a sing-off to find the prime suspect in terms of who is the biggest loser tonight: namely, whomever simultaneously ripped off the Playboy Clubs in big cities like New York, Boston and Los Angeles. But many people in our office community remain grim about the prospect of staying up all night to chuck the responsibility at a suspect identified tentatively as "Whitney Parks." For the latest in this breach of law and order, check back at Rock Center, dateline tomorrow, only on NBC. Celebrity Apprentice.
• Darelle Revis' cornerback play is so smothering that he has promised to put Eagles' WR DeSean Jackson in "Fart Fuck Hell." Kiss the Devil, Bob.
