We all know the commercial.

Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get back up!

Whoever made that Life Alert ad two decades ago deserves to earn residuals, because we’re still referencing it in 2026. But it takes a truly creative mind like Colin Cowherd to take that legendary commercial and use it to explain the game of one of the NBA’s biggest stars. Alas, Cowherd has made a career out of these illustrative monologues. And on Wednesday, he provided us with another all-timer by somehow comparing watching Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s patented flops to inserting the star of the Life Alert commercial into Cirque du Soleil.

If that isn’t painting a clear enough picture for you yet, let Colin explain.

“Watching him flop in an NBA game is like inserting one of those Life Alert commercials – I’ve fallen and I can’t get up! – into Cirque du Soleil. It tears at the fabric of the creativity of the NBA.”@colincowherd says it’s time for the NBA to address SGA’s flopping pic.twitter.com/JXexhKA3uJ

— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) May 6, 2026

“First of all, SGA’s a really good player. He’s a fluid athlete, one of the best mid-range jumpers of all time, he’s got tight handles, he’s a great player, he’s an all-star player,” Cowherd began. “But because the flopping is allowed … what bothers me is it’s become a central point of the playoffs and a central part of his game. If you do it once a game, I’m okay with it. It’s become the central point of his game, and the NBA is the sport with the most creative, artistic athletes, right? And this is like acting versus AI acting; it’s just not as authentic. Watching him flop during an NBA game is like, to some degree, it’s like inserting one of those Life Alert commercials, ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,’ into Cirque du Soleil. It kind of tears at the fabric of the creativity of the NBA.”

What a way to land the plane, Colin. And the best part? It’s true! The modern NBA is a beacon for athletic creativity. No other sport compares. The fluid, free-flowing nature of the modern NBA can be mesmerizing, just like Cirque du Soleil. But that can all be ruined when a player compels the refs to blow the whistle with some dramatized contact.

Most basketball fans accept this as part of the game, but when a player, like SGA, is exceptionally good at drawing a whistle, fans start to lose patience.

You can’t blame SGA, either. He’s mastered the art of deception. But viewers aren’t tuning into NBA games to see sleight of hand; they’re looking for the beautiful choreography of basketball.

In other words, no one wants to see grandma fall and take down the acrobats.

The post Colin Cowherd: SGA’s flops are like Life Alert meets Cirque du Soleil appeared first on Awful Announcing.

As Draymond Green and Austin Rivers engaged in the latest drummed-up athlete media beef this week, Cam Newton used the opportunity to offer a broader commentary — and warning — about all athlete-hosted content.

While Newton is certainly liable to his fair share of drama and beef and isn’t afraid to clash with other hosts online or in mainstream media, he believes the barbs thrown back and forth by Green and Rivers show a larger problem among athletes who talk about sports.

“What we are witnessing here is the opportunities for player-led media to showcase itself. We’ve always wanted to be more than just athletes. We always felt like we were qualified to speak about the sport,” Newton said on his podcast, 4th and 1. “But ladies and gentleman, boys and girls … understand, if this is what we want, this is what you’re going to keep getting. If you have players talking about players and other players critiquing players, it’s going to be this same dog and pony show.”

The problem, Newton said, is that athletes rely too heavily on beef to generate interest in their work, and that in doing so, they also squash other perspectives in an unhealthy way.

“That’s what you’re going to keep getting from these athlete-led platforms who take offense to what’s said,” Newton said. “But to the athletes, you have to understand, you’ve gotta be able to have diversity in your content. Because if you’re just going back and forth saying, ‘I, I, I’, ‘me, me, me,’ that’s not a sustainable recipe, brother.”

Throughout his tenure in media as a podcast host and ESPN contributor, Newton has consistently explored the dynamics between athletes and media. Newton knows a thing or two about facing criticism; when he played, Newton was one of the most scrutinized quarterbacks in sports history. But more recently, Newton has preached the value of diverse viewpoints in media.

On Wednesday’s 4th and 1, Newton argued that traditional sports media deserves a seat at the table even as athletes encroach on the industry, giving the audience the ability to pick and choose the perspectives they consume. When Green and Rivers try to one-up each other under the pretense that one of them is more worthy to give an opinion than the other, Newton said, it undermines the ability of all athletes to have a voice.

“I just think we have to be extremely mindful, because it’s a lot of alpha energy that’s talking into these mics, where it’s like, come on,” he said. “I’ve been guilty too … (but) it’s all entertainment. But now you’ve got Austin Rivers and Draymond Green, it’s a lot of personal attacks.”

Newton’s point certainly is refreshing for anyone who is tired of athletes who transfer locker-room spitting contests to their podcasts and shows. And it also is generally uplifting to others like him trying to rise to the top of the YouTube game or get in somewhere like ESPN, even if it sounds like criticism.

The point is to make entertaining, informative content, not to establish superiority over the competition.

“Talk about the take, not the person,” Newton said.

The post Cam Newton urges athlete-led media not to beefs for clicks: ‘Talk about the take, not the person’ appeared first on Awful Announcing.

Tim Brando has been saying college football’s regular season is overrated since before it was useful for Fox Sports to say so.

“I’ve been saying this since I worked at ESPN and CBS Sports,” Brando posted on X Tuesday. “This greatest regular season crap has been a myth for years!”

Damned straight they are on the right track and all the bitching,moaning and gnashing of teeth won’t stop it from becoming reality. What do we know tho @ClayTravis we’re both “house boys” from @FOXSports in the minds of the propagandists on this platform. I’ve been saying this… https://t.co/n4a0KrttVh

— Tim Brando (@TimBrando) May 6, 2026

The post came in response to news that the American Football Coaches Association voted last week to support a 24-team playoff format that would eliminate conference championship games. Brando also called himself and Clay Travis “house boys” for Fox Sports in the minds of critics — an acknowledgment, however sardonic, that the network’s fingerprints are all over this push.

The fingerprints are not hard to find.

Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks publicly endorsed the 24-team format in April during a Sports Business Journal conference. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti has been floating the idea of expanding to 24 or 28 teams since last summer. Fox’s lead analyst, Joel Klatt, has spent the better part of this playoff cycle criticizing ESPN’s exclusive CFP deal, calling it bad for the sport, and has said he would “do anything” to call a playoff game.

The financial stakes explain a lot. ESPN’s current deal gives it exclusive broadcast rights to every CFP game, in any format, for up to 14 teams. Every team added beyond that threshold means new inventory that has to go to market, and Fox would seemingly be among the first in line to bid on it. A 24-team bracket adds roughly 12 additional games to a network that currently has no college football footprint after conference championship weekend.

On the other side, ESPN executives have privately dismissed the 24-team format, per Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, aligning with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who has been firm in his preference for 16 teams and has no interest in eliminating conference championship games, which generate around $80 million annually for the SEC alone. The ACC and Big 12 have recently come around to supporting 24 teams, leaving the SEC as the lone holdout among the power four conferences.

The “greatest regular season” argument — the one Brando is swinging at — is the SEC and ESPN’s primary line of defense. It is the idea that college football’s regular season derives its value from scarcity, that every game matters because only a handful of teams make the playoff, and that expanding the field dilutes that. It is an argument ESPN’s Kevin Clark made forcefully on The Paul Finebaum Show this week, calling a 24-team playoff a “disgrace” and accusing CFP leadership of not actually liking the sport they are running.

“College football has the best regular season in sports,” Clark said. “And every decision, every idea I’ve seen about playoff expansion seems like it’s come from people who don’t like college football.”

“I think that college football should be run by people who like college football. And every decision, every idea I’ve seen about playoff expansion seems like it’s come from people who don’t like college football, don’t know why we like it… A 24-team playoff would be a… pic.twitter.com/maMkRmFl6I

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 4, 2026

Brando’s counter is that the regular-season mythology has always been overstated, that the old system produced its own meaningless games, its own foregone conclusions, and a postseason so small and so political that it drove more resentment than reverence. He is not alone in that view, given that Klatt himself made a version of it when defending the 12-team expansion last season, pointing out that the old four-team model had “reduced the definition of success to only four teams” and was “awful for the sport.”

The argument, in other words, is not just Brando’s. It’s the coordinated position of many prominent voices at Fox Sports — from Shanks in the executive suite to Klatt in the booth — and Brando is simply one of the few willing to say out loud what the network’s financial interests make obvious.

Whether any of it moves the needle depends almost entirely on whether the SEC holds. If enough SEC coaches begin pressuring Sankey — and the AFCA’s board includes SEC members like Oklahoma’s Brent Venables and Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea — that calculus may very well shift. For now, the CFP is expected to remain at 12 teams for the 2026-27 season. The fight over what comes next is very much alive, and Fox is making sure everyone knows where it stands.

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