Why didn't Olbermann punt?

Many in the blog world have ordained Keith Olbermann this generation's Edward R. Murrow. While such lofty praise may be somewhat exaggerated, ever since he began offering extended "special commentaries" on his nightly MSNBC show "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" he's become a champion to those highly critical of questionable governmental practices.

With his star again on the rise and a new contract in tow, Olbermann and NBC have decided to supplement his role as news commentator by returning him to his sports roots as a co-host of the network's "Football Night in America" studio show. This begs us to ask: Why, Keith, why now?

As I'm writing this post, Olbermann is interviewing guests about Monday's tragic killing spree at Virginia Tech University in which, at press time, 33 were slain and 15 injured in America's deadliest mass shooting. It's a difficult story, a sad story, and Olbermann is very much in his element anchoring its coverage, unlike many of the vapid daytime news readers whose questions and comments as the story unfolded were enough to make anyone cringe.

Olbermann had to reinvent and rehabilitate his career after rocky stints at ESPN and Fox Sports in which disputes with management overshadowed journalistic excellence. It was the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, that perhaps accidentally thrust Olbermann back into meat-and-potatoes news reporting as he filed eyewitness accounts from Ground Zero for 40 days on the ABC Radio Network and news station KFWB in Los Angeles.

During his years on ESPN's SportsCenter and in local news, particularly on Los Angeles TV stations KCBS and KTLA, Olbermann was as good as any sports anchor. But in the ensuing years he has morphed into one of the foremost news commentators in the evergrowing soapbox that is cable news. For the first time in a long time there's a momentum at MSNBC that is in part attributable to the buzz generated by "Countdown."

So why then would NBC return Olbermann to the sports desk to narrate mundane and oft-repeated football highlights and add yet another talking head to a studio show that already features the likes of Bob Costas, Cris Collinsworth, Jerome Bettis, Tiki Barber and Peter King? And why would Olbermann take such an assignment at this time? It can't be that he needs a sports fix -- he appears regularly on longtime colleague Dan Patrick's daily ESPN Radio show. It can't be money, can it?

The Sports Spud has been a longtime Olbermann fan and there was a time we would have gladly welcomed the return of his witty and often caustic style of sports commentary to any platform that chose to carry him. But not now. Not while the "Countdown" is ticking.