I’ll Tell You What!

I’m watching the NFC Wild Card game between the Seattle Seahawks and the St. Louis Rams. Usually, the ESPN crew of Mike Patrick, Joe Theismann and Paul McGuire are as solid a broadcasting crew as there is. However, Paul has this bad habit of saying, “I’ll tell you what….” during every piece of analysis he does.

For instance, “I’ll tell you what, Mike! That Chat Brown is a great player.” Or, “Ha! Ha! Joe, I’ll tell you what! The Rams are going to win this game.” Or, “I’ll tell you what! Charles Alexander is ONE TOUGH GUY!” He says it practically every sentence. It gets to be so often that if he doesn’t say it, you’re wondering what’s wrong with him.

He says so much that many other announcers have picked it up. I’ll hear it on CBS, Fox, even John Madden has said it more than once.

“I’ll tell you what” has bled into other sports. I’ve heard it during the Olympics, college basketball, hockey, even John McEnroe said it during the French Open. This has been said so much that I cringe whenever I hear it.

There may be other phrases that are just as annoying as Paul McGuire’s, but I have yet to hear it. I hope that ESPN or ABC will tell Paul that he’s been saying, “I’ll tell you what” way too much.