Gus Johnson is known for some of his outstanding calls on CBS broadcasts, particularly his enthusiastic work during March Madness. In fact, it was only back in week one that he absolutely nailed the call of the Broncos last second miracle play by Brandon Stokley to beat the Bengals. While Gus is at his best reacting to the unpredictable action in front of him, he had a lapse in judgment when he used what seemed like was a “scripted” line while describing the first of Titans running back Chris Johnson’s touchdown runs on Sunday. When Chris broke away for the score, Gus’ description was “He’s got getting away from the cops speed!” Wait for the second run by Chris in this video to hear it.
Putting aside that the league is so image conscious that Roger Goodell enforces strict penalties for players who get into trouble with the law, this is just a stupid thing to say all the way around. I’m guessing that the last thing Chris Johnson, who to the best of my knowledge has never had any legal issues, wanted was to have the announcers compare his football run to that of someone escaping the police. Gus owes Chris an apology and should know better than that. Furthermore, the argument that it’s OK because it’s a black announcer saying it about another black person is ludicrous; such an analogy should never be invoked if it has no factual basis, which in Chris’ case, it doesn’t. If that was meant to be funny, I don’t see the humor in it.
Video courtesy of Awful Announcing, of course
