Our pal Dan Patrick isn’t happy this morning.  Specifically, he’s not happy about a recent column from our other pal Jason Whitlock of FOXSports.com, in which Whitlock criticizes the addition of Patrick to NBC’s Football Night in America.

And Dan is willing to put his money where his mouth is.  We think.  (More on that later.)

The ball got rolling with this “tell us what you really think, Big Sexy” comment from Whitlock last week:  “What in the hell is NBC doing adding another person to its NFL studio show who doesn’t really care or know anything about the NFL?” 

Whitlock also offered a person-by-person assessment of each of the other forty-eight six members of the show, with only Cris Collinsworth getting a gold star, and most of the rest of them sporting dunce caps.

Patrick addressed the Whitlock column on Monday during his radio show, partially with tongue in cheek and partially deadly serious.  He called the Whitlock column “disappointing,” and said that it would make far more sense to review the revamped show after Whitlock actually sees it.

Patrick also pointed out that it’s not his role to have an encyclopedic knowledge of pro football or to be able to break down the Cover Two defense.  Patrick’s job will be, with Keith Olbermann, to read the highlights of the day’s games.

“Don’t tell me I don’t know how to do highlights,” Patrick said.  “I don’t break down game footage. . . .  You have roles on the show.”

Patrick also was a bit dismayed that Whitlock would question Patrick’s knowledge of or passion for pro football without asking Patrick about the subject.  “My job is not to break down the game,” Patrick said.  “If i don’t know, I’ll ask.  If Jason doesn’t know, he didn’t ask.  He just wrote it.”

And here’s the kicker, though we doubt Patrick was totally serious about it.  Dan has offered not to do the NBC show if Curt Menefee of FOX and James Brown of CBS, both hosts of their respective networks’ pregame shows, have more knowledge about the NFL than Patrick. 

The flip side of the coin here is that, if Patrick has more knowledge than Menefee and Brown, then Whitlock will give up his column at FOXSports.com.

We understand where Patrick is coming from on this.  But we also agree with Whitlock when it comes to passion, not knowledge.

One of our biggest criticisms of the NBC studio show has been that Costas and Olbermann, as baseball-first broadcasters, lack the proper love for the sport of football.  And even though both are adept at telling viewers about the things that happen when a gathering of grown men is enhanced by the addition of a ball or varying shapes, sizes, and composition, neither project a Chris Berman-style enthusiasm for the game.

The folks watching at home pick up on that kind of stuff.  If the people talking at us are naturally and genuinely excited about the things about which they’re talking, we tend to be more excited, too.  And thus we tend to care more about the thing about which the folks on the television are talking about.  And, consequently, we want to watch more of it.

We’re not suggesting that NBC needs a guy who’ll whoop and holler during the highlights, but we have believed since Day One that NBC’s show lacks passion. 

Unlike Whitlock, we’ll wait until the new show debuts before we decide whether Patrick’s presence changes our assessment.