1. Happy Football Season. Here's what you need to know about the networks airing NFL games this season and the broadcast crews you'll be listening to every Sunday, Monday and Thursday (and Friday and Saturday) later in the season.
ESPN
• John Madden and Pat Summerall worked together for 22 seasons. No broadcast duo has had a longer run in NFL history. The 2023 season will represent Year No. 22 for Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.
• ESPN/ABC will air four Monday Night Football doubleheaders this year. They aren’t traditional doubleheaders, though. They are “side-by-side” games.
In Week 2, the Saints play the Panthers at 7:15 ET on ESPN while the Browns play the Steelers are 8:15 ET on ABC.
In Week 3, the Eagles visit the Bucs at 7:15 ET on ABC while the Rams visit the Bengals at 8:15 ET on ESPN.
In Week 14, the Packers at Giants and Titans at Dolphins will both kick off at 8:15 ET.
The doubleheader matchups and times in Week 17 are still TBD.
Chris Fowler Dan Orlovsky and Louis Riddick will call the extra games in those four weeks.
• ESPN will get flex scheduling for MNF from Weeks 12 through 17.
CBS
• CBS has the most different broadcaster lineup of all the networks. The changes are all in the lower crews, and all feature a three-person booth. The new crews for CBS are as follows: Andrew Catalon, Tiki Barber, Matt Ryan, AJ Ross; Tom McCarthy, James Lofton, Jay Feely; Chris Lewis, Jason McCourty, Ross Tucker.
Jim Nantz–Tony Romo, Ian Eagle–Charles Davis and Kevin Harlan remain the top three crews at CBS, while Greg Gumbel is no longer calling NFL acton for the network.
• The biggest change for CBS’s pregame show is the addition of J.J. Watt on a part-time basis. The future Hall of Famer will be in studio with the regular crew for Week 1.
• CBS airs the Super Bowl this season and it will be called by Jim Nantz, Tony Romo and Tracy Wolfson.
Fox
• All of Fox's game crews remain the same as 2022. Kevin Burkhardt–Greg Olsen; Joe Davis–Daryl Johnston; Adam Amin–Mark Schlereth; Kenny Albert–Jonathan Vilma; Kevin Kugler-Mark Sanchez; Chris Myers-Robert Smith.
• The big change will come next season when Tom Brady joins Kevin Burkhardt on Fox’s No. 1 crew. Will Brady replace Greg Olsen or join Greg Olsen on the No. 1 crew is the question.
• Even the pregame crew for Fox NFL Sunday remains the same with the one change coming on the pregame show before the pregame show, with Julian Edelman (this week's guest on SI Media With Jimmy Traina) joining Fox NFL Kickoff.
NBC
• Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth will work their second full season together on Sunday Night Football.
• Former Patriot Devin McCourty joins the Football Night in America pregame show.
• For Sunday Night Football on NBC, flex scheduling may be used up to twice between Weeks 5 and 10, and at the NFL’s discretion during Weeks 11 to 17.
• NBC's streaming service, Peacock, will have exclusive rights to the Week 16 Bills-Chargers game at 8 p.m. as well as a wild-card game.
Amazon
• Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit are back for their second season calling Thursday Night Football on the streaming service.
• Amazon will air Dolphins at Jets at 3 p.m. ET in the first-ever Black Friday game on Nov. 24.
• Amazon gets flex scheduling for TNF from Weeks 13 through 17, where flex can be used twice.
2. I'm honestly not sure what Cris Collinsworth was trying to do last night by acting as if NFL fans across the country were unfamiliar with Patrick Mahomes’s greatness.
"I think America is about to find out how good he really is."- Cris Collinsworth on 2-time NFL MVP and 2-time Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes pic.twitter.com/N734Do71FV
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 8, 2023
3. The Marlins’ ballboy got a carried away with his duties Thursday night.
The Marlins ball boy didn’t know the ball was fair and just chucked it into the stands LMAOOOOOO pic.twitter.com/vqzV3ZDJor
— Addison (@YankeeWRLD) September 8, 2023
4. While most of you were watching Lions-Chiefs, there was quite the incident during the women’s semifinal match between Coco Gauff and Karolina Muchová at the U.S Open. Protesters kept shouting and yelling during the match, so security went to remove them. There was only one problem. One of the protesters glued his bare feet to the ground.
Climate activist glued his feet to the floor at US Open after interrupting the match. #USOpen pic.twitter.com/jsv8TCGzd2
— Jack Ciapciak (@jackciapciak) September 8, 2023
The man has been removed - 35 mins since the protest/disruption began #USOpen pic.twitter.com/bYhGawKGi2
— Molly McElwee (@molly_mcelwee) September 8, 2023
It's now been 20 mins since the protest began and they still haven't been able to remove one of the men from his seat. NYPD officers have arrived.
— Molly McElwee (@molly_mcelwee) September 8, 2023
He is not leaving without a fight and has removed his shoes. Not clear whether he has attached himself to the chair https://t.co/WOI8JfkZIL
5. J.J. Watt just still be scarred from dealing with pranks over his NFL career because when his new CBS Today teammate, Boomer Esiason, tried to get Watt a free watch, the future Hall of Famer was very skeptical.
This was amusing. @7BOOMERESIASON gets the “NFL Today” crew new watches at the start of the season. New addition @JJWatt wasn’t buying it, though, and thought he was getting hazed. pic.twitter.com/HJkH28HeaT
— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) September 8, 2023
6. This week's episode of SI Media With Jimmy Traina features two interviews plus the weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment.
First up is Super Bowl champion Julian Edelman, who joined Fox NFL Kickoff this season. Edelman discusses his new gig with Fox, why so many former Patriots are on television and why he chose TV over coaching. Edelman also talks about what it was like playing for Bill Belichick and with Tom Brady, how Belichick would use other players’ quotes to motivate the Patriots, how Brady would mock him for not being fully in on the TB12 Method, the issue of gambling in the NFL, his love of burgers, beef with Ben Affleck, bad betting losses and much more.
Following Edelman, John Ourand from Sports Business Journal joins the show to talk about the dispute between Spectrum cable and Disney, which has left 15 million subscribers without ESPN. What is the dispute about? When will it get settled? What should customers do? Ourand also discusses what we should expect from NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube when the season kicks off, the strong ratings for the start of the college football season and more.
The podcast closes with Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York joining me for “Traina Thoughts.” This week we talk about Week 1 NFL lines, the U.S. Open, Jimmy Buffet and more.
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.
You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on YouTube.
