Cris Collinsworth talks football. And gymnastics

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Cris Collinsworth and Bob Papa, the new announcing team for the NFL Network, begin their regular season of eight prime-time games with the Denver Broncos playing the Browns in Cleveland on Nov. 6. The duo were were introduced to reporters during a Tuesday conference call.

That’s two days after the election, so both sides will probably need to take out some aggression. Collinsworth hopes Cleveland fans will behave -- as a former Cincinnati Bengals player, he remembers being hit by batteries and other thrown objects while playing in Cleveland.

As for his old team? ‘I was sad about it the first 10 years, then you get a little numb to it,’ Collinsworth said. ‘Then 0-for-whatever adds to the pain and misery. Now, when my kids say I used to play for the Bengals, the response is always, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry’; it’s like we had a death in the family. In my kids lifetimes, and I have one in college, the Bengals have been good one year. The Bengals go to the playoffs, Carson Palmer hits a 60-yard pass, his knee gets blown out, it’s over.’

Collinsworth and Papa were part of NBC’s Olympic broadcast team from Beijing this past summer. Papa said he called 251 out of a possible 270 boxing fights. ‘Someday maybe they’ll fix Olympic boxing to make it relevant again,’ he said.

Collinsworth said he spent a lot of time in the green room with Olympic color man and former U.S. gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi. Collinsworth offered an opinion on the controversial ages of the Chinese female gymnasts: ‘I’m going with 11. Bela kept saying, ‘Look at their teeth. They have baby teeth.’ No way those girls were 16. I have four kids; if those Chinese girls were 16, they’re a lot different than 16 in the United States of America.’

-- Diane Pucin