Michael Irvin and Marshall Faulk clowned Phil Simms and it was hilarious

Did you notice CBS announcer Phil Simms’ praise of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Blaine Gabbert on Thursday night? If you watched that game, the answer has to be yes.

There was a triple whammy at play: Former players don’t often criticize current players on air. Simms is a former NFL quarterback, and he’s likely to find anything positive to say about a fellow quarterback. Also, Simms and Jim Nantz had to do something to polish up a pretty bad Thursday night game.

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Well, Michael Irvin and Marshall Faulk were watching too, and they noticed that Simms was very positive about Gabbert’s pedestrian 162-yard performance in a 33-21 loss to the Arizona Cardinals.

Something else you don’t often see is someone in the studio point make fun of someone in the booth, but Michael Irvin and Marshall Faulk on the NFL Network set had some laughs over Simms (NFL Network and CBS both telecast the Thursday night game).

But when has Irvin ever held back?

“Did anybody else feel kind of weird the way Phil Simms was talking about Blaine Gabbert as we’re watching some of these passes?” Irvin said. “He was talking about him as if he was the second coming of Tom Brady or something.”

“No, no. He was talking about Blaine Gabbert like he was his relative!” Faulk said.

It was pretty funny. It’s a good bet that plenty of people at home who were thinking the same thing about Simms chuckled too.

Irvin said Simms is “great at what he does,” and they’re colleagues. They both work on Showtime’s “Inside the NFL” and Irvin said he was going to give Simms a hard time when he saw him on the show. It was about that point when host Rich Eisen tried changing the subject, probably to the delight of Steve Mariucci who was wearing a “I’m scared to say anything” look during the segment.

So if you’ve sat around complaining about Simms during CBS’ broadcasts, Irvin and Faulk spoke for you on Thursday night.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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