Power Rankings Are Back

You asked for them. Well, maybe not you specifically, but someone did. Probably. If they didn't, at least I remembered that I used to do Power Rankings, and decided to bring them back. So, someone asked for them, or decided to do them again. Either way, it's happening. We're going to have three installments: Most Annoying Sports Phrases, Most Annoying Work Phrases, and Things You Can't Get the Generic Version Of.

The pre-blog coin-flip determined that we'll start with sports phrases. The sports I watch regularly are basketball, soccer, and football. If you have phrases from other sports, leave them in the comments. Also, I could listen to soccer announcers 24/7. So they will not be in the list of annoying phrases. Instead, here are some of my favorite phrases from soccer announcers that I've written down over the past couple years.

1.  Kevin Davies rises like a salmon for the opener.

2. Henry... A generous touch for the Barcelona faithful.

3. Ahh, Tevez, wonderful gale, and great silkiness to his game. Marvelous to watch.

4. Tidy goalkeeping there.

5. Marquez, speculatively!

6. A spot of dishonesty to draw the penalty.

Most Annoying Sports Phrases POWER RANKINGS

15. "What was the plan for the second half?" - Sideline reporters are good for at least three questions of this magnitude per game. My favorite interviewee is Shaq. He never listens to the questions,  then talks about whatever he wants to talk about. Sometimes he'll even tell the announcer that he didn't listen. That's the validation that sideline reporters yearn for.

14. Untracked - Contributed by Danny Rouhier. I haven't noticed this one. But I'll be on the lookout. Apparently, if someone is struggling, the announcer will say, "____ can't get untracked." Sounds like the equivalent of an office manager saying, "Moving forward."

13. Obvious things like, "Best-case for Marquette, would be for Missouri to miss both free-throws..." - That is an actual quote from a game over the weekend. No shit. Best-case scenario for the listeners is that things like this aren't said. Best-case scenario for me would be to get paid large amounts of money for doing nothing. But some things don't need to be announced. Another favorite quote from this category was when Madden was calling an Eagles-Redskins game and said, "Whenever these teams play, it's either gonna be a high-scoring game, or a low-scoring game. Either way, somebody is gonna win."

12. He's a shot-maker... trying to put the ball in the hole - This one is a two-pronged golf quote, contributed by Danny Rouhier. Wouldn't you assume that all golfers are shot-makers who try to put the ball in the hole whenever possible? If a basketball announcer said that someone was going to try to make a shot, I'm pretty sure they would be fired.

11. Basketball/Football IQ - This is a funny, back-handed compliment. An announcer would never say that Shane Battier has a high basketball IQ, because he's one of the smartest players to ever play. They would just call him "a very intelligent player," or something like that. But Ron Artest, whose actual IQ probably falls somewhere between a beetle and peat moss, plays very smartly. So, an announcer would say, "Ron Artest has a high basketball IQ," implying that you wouldn't expect it. It's like, "Ron Artest... Great at reading a defense... not so great at reading books."

10. Heart of a champion - This is probably the cheesiest one. It's usually said about people who overachieve. Like Jimmy Chitwood would have the heart of a champion. It really just means that the team puts forth maximum effort, but all Disney-ed up. The only time I heard it and didn't cringe was when the sixth-seeded, defending champion Houston Rockets won it all again in 1995 and Rudy T said, "Never underestimate the heart of a champion." Of course it was ridiculous. Their regular season record wasn't what it should have been, due to injuries, so they weren't underestimated at all. They really won it all because they were the best team in the league, and because Olajuwan was the only center who could guard Shaq.

9. We gave ____ percent - You're professionals. You all gave 100 percent. If you didn't, you wouldn't be professionals. My friend, Frank Hong, had a great joke about this. "I'd be more impressed if they said, 'We went out and gave 90%... and still won." And I know that professional athletes don't have to be good at math, but can't they at least understand that 110% doesn't exist? Whatever effort you're giving when you think it's 110%, is actually 100%. "But this one goes to 11."

8. Road to the... - My close personal lady-friend pointed this one out to me. Everything is now Road to the..., or a variation thereof. Road to the Final Four, Road to the Super Bowl, Quest for the Ring, Path to the Draft. Just shut the hell up and call it a pre-game show or something. 

7. Upside - "_____ has an amazing upside." This is said roughly every seven seconds at the NBA Draft. It seems that about 10 years ago, all NBA analyst's brains were expunged of the word "potential." Now, everything is upside. What's a backside? Right. So, to people hearing it for the first time, it kind of sounds like they're talking about a player having a great erection.

6. Length - This is another very gay-sounding NBA Draft axiom. Someone who has long arms "has great length." About six years ago, everyone stopped saying "wing-span" and "arm-length," and just went with length. Good choice.

5. Ceiling - This is another NFL and NBA draft axiom. It's similar to upside, but while "upside" simply means that the player will improve substantially, "ceiling" lets you know just how much upside there is. It also lets me know that it's time to mute the TV.

4. Football [insert word] - Football announcers like to make sure that everyone knows that what they're watching is football related. "Brett Favre is just a football player." "Spikes with the great football play." "The guys are down on the football field, ready to play a game of football." "Chris Samuels with the nice football move to open the hole." Attention all football announcers of National Football League football games: We know we're watching football.

3. Great in the locker room - This is common to hear on football broadcasts, and sometimes in basketball. "______ may not make a huge impact on the field, but he's great in the locker room. The guys love having him around." How does this sound like anything other than "The guy is a BJ-monger, and you know the guys love getting blown."

2. Keys to Victory - Before every competitive sports game, they analyze the Keys to Victory. They're never as direct as they should be, but always come down to "Outscore the other team." Sometimes they'll go a little obtuse and say, "It's not up to Boston to outscore Phoenix. They need to make Phoenix try to outscore them." You need a flow-chart to figure out what that means.

1. All thanks to God - This has to be the most annoying to me. Regardless of your religion, if you think divine intervention occurred during your sports game, you are a moron who shouldn't be allowed to own sharp objects. This is why I can't support Kurt Warner. In every post-game interview he implies, "Well, there's war, famine and crime all over the world. But God took a break from all that to ensure that we can win our division with an 8-8 record." Thank your teammates and coaches, asshole.