What a week of football in the NFL, specifically in the Midwest. The Indianapolis Colts clinched a playoff berth with a Thursday night victory. The Detroit Lions fell to 0-15 and are one loss away from professional sports infamy. The Bears and Packers renew their age old rivalry tomorrow night. The Titans locked up home field advantage. And, of course, the Cleveland Browns continued one of the most epic crashes from preseason media darling to inept doormat with a 14-0 loss to the Bengals.

Since I have made my support for the Cleveland Browns well known on this site, I certainly do not feel like discussing today’s loss to the Bengals anymore. And because today’s loss has basically turned me into a bitter NFL fan, I don’t want to celebrate or discuss any of the positive NFL news concerning Midwest NFL teams.

No, we are going to discuss something a little different this evening: the true Story of the Week in the NFL. And it deals with the debut of the NFL’s next great sideline reporting star: Weather Channel meteorologist Jim Cantore, who debuted as a sideline weather correspondent on NBC Sunday Night Football tonight. (At least, I think it’s it the debut. I’ve never seen him on SNF before, and a quick google search brought back no relevant results.)

There are a few ways that you might be familiar with the work of Jim Cantore:

1 — If you’ve lived in Miami (as I did for two years) or any other state along the Atlantic of Gulf coasts, you have no doubt spent many nights glued to the TV watching the Weather Channel for reports about impending hurricanes. And if you’ve done this, you have no doubt seen videos just like the one below. The excitement really picks up around the 0:50 mark when the wind gusts increase.

Link to Video

2 — If you used to be an avid listener to Tony Kornheiser’s morning radio show, you may remember that Tony used to have quite an affinity, and perhaps even a man-crush, for Jim Cantore. Case in point, here is an excerpt from a 2000 column by Tony Kornheiser when he was at the Super Bowl:

The five-day weather forecast calls for lows in the 20s every night, and highs in the lower forties. (True story: When I checked into the hotel I ran into Sterling Sharpe and Tommy Jackson of ESPN. They were carrying their golf clubs. Sharpe said to me, “”We’re playing on Wednesday. Wanna play?”" I asked him, “”What are you going to use to get out of a trap, a snow blower?”") Normally, the lobby of the media hotel has giant TV screens continuously tuned to sports channels. The weather is such an issue here that the TVs are all on the Weather Channel. So far, Jim Cantore is a much bigger star than Kurt Warner.

I wonder if Tony has ever seen this video, of Jim Cantore getting hit with a snowball on live TV:

Link to Video

3 — Or you may just have stumbled across the passionate weather work of Jim Cantore by accident. Perhaps you were flipping through the channels of the TV and decided to hang tight a second before flipping again when you the following coverage on your screen during the recent coverage of Hurricane Ike.

This following video includes the most exciting words in weather coverage: “And this gazebo’s shaking too much. That–you know what, we gotta cut this. We gotta cut this guys. We’re done.”

(Hint: Watch this one, or fast forward, all the way to the end.)

Link to Video

And, for our final Jim Cantore video of this Avoiding-NFL-Discussion-Because-the-Browns-Suck Sunday Night, how about a little on-air flirtation between Jim Cantore and something other than a hurricane. This video is entitled “Jim Cantore gettin fresh on camera with Alexandra Steele.” There is nothing egregious or outlandish here, but it is nice to know that perhaps something other than inclement weather can actually make Jim Cantore’s weather pole stiffen.

Link to Video

Just think how much more exciting the Ice Bowl, or the Tuck Game, or the “Heinz Field Fiasco”, or any number of other famous bad weather sporting events, would have been had we been blessed with the perspective and passion of Jim Cantore. He is like the Gus Johnson of meteorologists (with some Ed Hochuli physique sprinkled in for good measure). And now that Jim Cantore has made his NFL debut, I just pray that at some point in the future we are blessed with an exciting, down-to-the-last-play game that is played in a southern city in the face of an oncoming hurricane — with Gus Johnson announcing and Jim Cantore being blown sideways while giving us the weather report from the sidelines.

What is more exciting?

• Gus Johnson announcing the last seconds of a close game.
• Jim Cantore reporting in the middle of a hurricane.

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On a cold December Sunday evenings, while recovering from another disappointing Cleveland Browns loss, it is thoughts like these that keep me smiling.

Update: Sunday Night, 10:30

After posting this, I came across the Jim Cantore bio on Weather.com, which includes a few interesting nuggets.

• “During the 1999-2000 NFL Football season, Jim was part of the “FOX NFL Sunday” team, reporting on the games affected by the weather.” — So I guess tonight was not Jim Cantore’s “debut” on football sidelines. And perhaps appearances by Jim Cantore will continue to be intermittent and based on his proximity to FOX games, and the probability for bad weather.
• “‘Wildweather.com’ voted Jim Meteorologist of the Month for August 2000. In their acknowledgement of his award it read, ‘Jim Cantore pushes television forecasting to the next level. Much as Michael Jordan changed basketball, Jim Cantore has forever altered the field of weather forecasting.’ ‘This man means business.’” — The Michael Jordan of meteorologists. Has there ever been a more obvious case of hyperbole?
• “Jim credits his Father, ‘who indulged my love for meteorology. Dad didn’t get too mad when he found me on the porch in my shorts at 2 a.m. shoveling the new fallen snow, or when his friends would call in the morning to ask me if they would have school that day.’” — The thought of a young boy shoveling show in his shorts at 2am is pretty preposterous. But for Jim Cantore? All part of the development of Michael Jordan of Meteorology.