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When You’re An NFL Consultant, It’s Good To Know That It’s “Warren Moon,” Not “Walter Moon”

Frank Luntz, as he said on his Outside the Lines appearance today, tracks public opinion. He came to prominence as a consultant/pollster/spin doctor type working with politicians like Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, and Newt Gingrich and advising the Republican Party on message delivery. He parlayed that into frequent TV gigs, especially on Fox News, where he’s often found moderating focus groups and talking about use of language and framing of issues (as also mentioned on OTL today, he was instrumental in coining phrases like “death tax” instead of “estate tax”). Point is, he’s all about making the desired impression.

So why was Luntz on ESPN this afternoon? Well, in addition to his political and TV work, he’s also doing some consulting for the NFL, and went on OTL to discuss what the league has to do to show fans it’s serious about player safety. Like a good paid consultant, he had some praise for what Roger Goodell & Co. have done to date. Uncharacteristically for someone so in tune with what the right use of language can do, though, he had a bit of trouble with something relatively simple – the name of one of his fellow guests on the program, Warren Moon:

That’s right – he said “Walter Moon,” twice. And Waren Moon isn’t just anyone – we’re talking about a Hall of Famer here, a guy who threw for nearly 50,000 NFL yards despite not getting a shot in the league until age 28. He threw for almost 3,700 yards the season he turned 41.

As Frink Loontz could surely tell you, if you’re working for an organization and given a prominent forum in which to discuss that organization, you’re expected to have a solid knowledge of that organization. If you know the NFL, you know Warren Moon, but Frunk Lentz, it seems, doesn’t. For once, the master of controlling the message lost his, and got tripped up by the simplest thing possible. It was the type of screwup he might normally help a client guard against, but today, Fronk Lantz was the one in need of some consultation.