One of the publictations I read (okay, scan) religiously is USAToday Sports Weekly. They’ve got decent fantasy sports advice and I will read anything that has weekly updates on each individual team – and they cover the two sports Tony and I write about in our current collection of blogs (www.brushbackpitch.com is the other, for the uninitiated).

The Web version of USA Today decided to ask fans who the best NFL broadcasters are and I found the results interesting.

NBC’s team of John Madden and Al Michaels was voted the best game announcers, getting more than 39 percent of more than 13,400 votes. My own first place vote probably would have gone to Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, though I can live with the Madden/Michaels duo. Both are on the downsides of their careers, but I remain a bigger fan of Madden than most. He’s a bit goofy these days, but still insightful. And Michaels is consistently solid.

Madden then tied with Troy Aikman for best NFL analyst. I don’t necessarily disagree with this. Along with Simms (despite his alleged knack for reguarly inserting homoerotic statements into his work, which I think is overblown but my wife insists is present in all NFL game broadcasts) , in my opinion, all three are insightful. I would add Ron Jaworski to the list. While I think he has good camaraderie with Mike Tirico and Tony Kornheiser on Monday nights, I’m always even more impressed with the job he does breaking down film during pre-game shows and the NFL draft.

I hearken back to, I believe, the 2007 draft when Jaws spent a couple segments late on day two expressing surprise that Matt Moore of Oregon State was still on the board. Moore went undrafted, signed with Dallas and then ended up with Carolina. When Jake Delhomme got hurt the Panthers went through a myriad of quarterbacks in 2007. Moore was one of them. His numbers weren’t necessarily pretty, but he did slightly stabilize the Panthers late that year enough to where I could understand where Jaworski’s insight came from. And I think he has a future, if not with the Panthers, then with someone else.

What impressed me more was that he was as knowledgeable as he was about a quarterback who wasn’t ever expected to go high in the draft and ended up going undrafted – Jaws might come off as slightly dorky from time to time but you can’t accuse him of being lazy. He definitely does his film work and knows his stuff.

Kornheiser received only 1 percent of 2,600 votes. “Yikes,” the USA Today Sports Weekly writeup exclaimed. He’s no superstar but I don’t think he’s that bad.

Michaels got the nod from 42 percent of 2,500 voters in the play-by-play category. I think Nantz is solid, though I do like Michaels better than Joe Buck. I think Kevin Harlan has some talent. And Dick Enberg’s and Don Criqui’s voices remain among my favorites, though at this point, both of those might be more due to their longevity – I remember watching them call games when I was growing up.

Tirico does a solid job of juggling a couple large personalities on the ESPN Monday night broadcasts. But yeah, Michaels is probably the best.

Sideline reporter is the one that shocked me. Tony Siragusa was named best sideline reporter. Really? Do people actually listen to what he says? His insights generally go something like this: “Man, those fat guys in the trenches sure sweat a lot. BAM!”

I would argue that Siragusa is the worst sideline reporter. He’s loud, uninformative, and interrupts a lot with his obnoxious and generally useless blurbs.  You would think his experience as a player would help him provide some insight, but in my opinion, his ego gets in the way. It seems like he gets antsy standing on the sidelines not being able to constantly hear his own voice, so at times he just blurts out whatever thoughts pop into his head – usually pointless, unintelligable and adding nothing.

There are few sideline reporters I think really add to the experience of watching games.Most of their insight during games involves injury reports, which is nice, but could probably be done by someone up in the booth.

I do think Michelle Tafoya is solid. She’s studied and solid, understated and confident in her abilities. She adds to the discussion while not getting in the way of the flow of the game or going overboard to impress anyone. Suzy Kolber is also better than most. Pam Oliver and Andrea Kremer are also solid, in my opinion.

USA Today also did a sharpest-dressed man among broadcasters. Michael Strahan from Fox won won. I didn’t pay any attention to that throughout the season. All of them probably dress better than I do so it would probably be hypocritical for me to have an opinion on that one.