Tag: CBS

Leonard Williams loves being a Seahawk

Leonard Williams loves being a Seahawk

The Seattle Seahawks have quietly constructed a dominant defensive line. After years of the men up front being pushed around by opponents, Seattle finally pushed back. In Week 1 against the Broncos, all of Denver’s running backs were held to only 64 yards as a team.

This is in part due to the excellent play from rookie Byron Murphy II and veteran Leonard Williams. Seattle acquired Williams last year from the New York Giants, and kept him by extending him to a three-year deal worth $64.5 million dollar contract. The Seahawks were clearly happy with the kind of player they brought in, and it seems the feeling is mutual.

Prior to Seattle’s victory over the Broncos – a game where the defense ending up shining brightest – Williams was being asked pregame by CBS’ sideline reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala about the “magic” of playing in Lumen Field as a defensive player. Williams’ answer will surely bring a smile to the faces of 12’s everywhere.

“Honestly this is the most beautiful place — the most special place to play in the world, in my opinion.” Williams proudly proclaimed. “I got here in the middle of the season last year, and my very first home game I was like ‘wow, this is what football’s about, right here!’ It’s only pregame right now and it’s already loud in here. On the defense sometimes you gotta really be sure of what you’re communicating because you can barely hear the man right next to you. I love it here!” 

Kinkhabwala concluded her segment with Williams by mentioning the noise of Lumen Field once more, but in relation to what rookie quarterback Bo Nix will face. Williams responded with “that’s why it’s called the 12th Man, we’re gonna get in his head with the crowd.” 

The 12th Man certainly brought it, as well as the defense. Nix struggled all game long, throwing for only 138 yards on 42 attempts with no touchdown passes and two interceptions. Meanwhile, the Seahawks’ correct decision to re-sign Williams is already paying off. Williams recorded four quarterback hits in the game to help make life miserable for Nix.

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CBS’s NFL studio show had a classy message for former colleagues Boomer Esiason and Phil Simms

What a classy move by CBS’s NFL studio show.

In the hard-nosed world of NFL media, there’s a lot more churn and turnover than you think. This sentiment even applies to the established former professionals who actually played the game at its highest level.

In advance of the 2024 NFL season, CBS restructured its lead studio show, The NFL Today, to include former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan and former Houston Texans pass-rusher J.J. Watt. That meant the network said goodbye to long-time panelists and NFL legends Boomer Esiason and Phil Simms, whose respective contracts weren’t renewed.

Before taking a break, host James Brown made sure to acknowledge all the success the show has had by properly shouting out Esiason and Simms’ roles. Naturally, the entire panel agreed that they “missed them” in a classy moment:

 

It’s a cold world out there. But if you’re Esiason and Simms, it’s probably nice knowing your old friends still appreciate you even if you don’t work for them anymore.

Announcers set for Chargers vs. Raiders Week 1 game

Find out who will be calling the Week 1 game between the Chargers and Raiders.

The Chargers will kick off the 2024 regular season against the Raiders on Sunday, Sept. 8, at 1:05 p.m. PT.

The AFC West divisional bout will be televised on CBS and Jim Nantz and Tony Romo will have the call.

Los Angeles looks to turn things around under new head coach Jim Harbaugh, who has a proven track record of winning at all of his coaching stops in college and the NFL.

Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Greg Roman seek to enforce a physical brand of football, and it starts with establishing the run. Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins will handle the backfield duties.

Justin Herbert will be without Keenan Allen and Mike Williams, but he’s proven to be one of the premier players at his position, throwing to lesser-known names. Joshua Palmer headlines the wide receiver room, with Ladd McConkey, Quentin Johnston and DJ Chark making up the rest.

After finishing as one of the worst defenses in the league, defensive coordinator Jesse Minter will look to turn things around. Minter will have Joey Bosa, Khalil Mack, Asante Samuel Jr., Derwin James and Alohi Gilman at his disposal. Poona Ford, Kristian Fulton and Denzel Perryman are the notable new additions.

Why the SEC isn’t on CBS anymore, explained

Here’s why you won’t be watching the SEC on CBS this year

For two decades now, we’ve gotten used to seeing the biggest SEC games broadcast on CBS.

You know what time it is when you hear that familiar college football jingle coming on your television. It always just felt like you were about to watch a good one, no matter who the teams playing were.

Chances are you probably were about to watch a good one since the SEC has been the most dominant conference in college football through the years, some of those games were the season’s most important games.

Now, you’ll have to watch those games somewhere else. The SEC’s games are no longer being broadcast on CBS’s network.

This fall, the SEC’s home will exclusively be on ESPN. The CBS deal expired at the end of the 2023 season and was never renewed.

However, the decision for both parties to move on isn’t a new one. According to Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger, the relationship had been deteriorating for years shortly after the conference added Texas A&M and Missouri to its coffers.

ESPN agreed to pay both schools the same as the previous 12 schools. CBS didn’t.

“While CBS owned rights to the No. 1 football game each week — as well as two doubleheaders a year — ESPN owned all other SEC games. When the league expanded, ESPN paid what is described as “pro-rata,” increasing distribution from 12 units to 14 to account for the two new schools.

CBS declined to do the same.”

So, when it was time to re-up the deal between the conference and the network, the two sides couldn’t reach a compromise.

Now, we’ll only watch SEC games on ESPN for the foreseeable future.

Tony Romo praising Tom Brady joining NFL announcing is like a dinosaur hyping up comets

Tony Romo doesn’t seem to realize he’s staring a comet right in the face.

I don’t know where Tony Romo got the idea that he’s this respected NFL announcing ambassador, but he needs to stop. Immediately. No one in their right mind is looking at CBS’s lead color commentator as this shining beacon of broadcasting light in 2024. These days, I’d venture to guess that very few view him as a leading example to follow.

In fact, from talking over Super Bowl-winning touchdowns to aimless live rambling that is often barely coherent, most pro football fans now probably (and rightfully) think the exact opposite of Romo in the booth.

Yet, here he is, opining about the legendary Tom Brady taking over as Fox’s top color analyst this fall. A morsel of self-awareness, please!

If you listen closely to the way Romo talks about Brady in a recent interview on CBS Mornings, you’d almost get the sense he doesn’t think the 7-time Super Bowl champion quarterback could supplant him as the most beloved modern NFL broadcaster.

It’s Romo’s not paying much of any attention to Brady’s debut and likely announcing ascendance.

More from CBS Mornings:

“We all know Tom [Brady] well,” Romo said. “You gotta remember, Jim’s [Nantz] done the most Tom Brady football of anyone (in broadcasting) — literally over 100 games. I think it’s great. I think it’s great for the industry that people want to go into this position and these roles. I think you find that the NFL has that grab. This [quarterbacks becoming announcers] was not always that, but Troy Aikman, I felt like really started this.

“Now, it’s part of possibly an arc in your career. But Tom’s gonna do great. He’s working as hard as anybody.”

I understand Romo is trying to be classy here. I know he’s making a point about quarterbacks becoming more comfortable talking to fans every Sunday. That is a welcome development! And I know this is him mostly being magnanimous toward a future “competitor” like Brady. The nature of NFL broadcasting on CBS (which focuses on AFC matchups) and Fox (which centers on NFC duels) doesn’t really make Brady a rival to Romo, even if their networks are fighting over the same afternoon time slots on Sundays. The generally equal conference split makes this more of an apples-and-oranges comparison than we’d like to admit.

At the same time, Romo does understand he’s lost his mantel as The Guy Who Correctly Predicts Plays Before They Happen, right? Surely, he knows that his work announcing games has become rote at best and grating at worst? Right?

Someone like Brady might not technically be a competitor, but that’s definitely not how NFL fans will view this dynamic in the long run. Everyone reading this is old enough to remember the direct Greg Olsen comparisons. It’ll be the same line of thinking for Brady.

If Brady’s awesome at the job for Fox — unfortunately, as much as it pains me to admit out loud in public, he probably will be — then he will be propped up by the football media landscape more than Romo ever was. It won’t be close. Because of Brady’s well-established, built-in playing resume, he can be so good at announcing that he might almost make the days of Romo offering insightful, worthwhile analysis seem like they never happened. And to be candid, that feels so long ago that I’m not sure it happened anymore myself.

Romo talking about how Brady working for Fox is excellent for the broadcast industry is him missing the mark on his own place in football. For cinephiles, it’s like Blockbuster praising Netflix for how it will revolutionize the DVD market. For you work-from-home 9-5ers, it’s like Skype giving Zoom some public shine for jumping into the video call space. For you history buffs out there,  it’s like Napoleon Bonaparte telling British naval commander Horatio Nelson, “good job” for hamstringing his navy.

You get the idea.

Kudos to Romo for giving Brady some advice and helping him ease into a new, demanding job. I’m certain not many other people would’ve been nearly as kind in his position, and that’s the point.

Likely broadcast team for Notre Dame-Purdue game on CBS unveiled

Will you enjoy listening to this crew?

We don’t know how Notre Dame will perform during its Sept. 14 game at Purdue, its third contest of the season. We do know that it will be broadcast on CBS as the primary game on that network’s Big Ten coverage. Now, we also know who most likely will be on the call for that game.

CBS Sports has announced that it has retained its lead college football broadcast team of Brad Nessler, Gary Danielson and Jenny Dell for the 2024 season. The team is set to announce every game in the network’s 3:30 p.m. EDT time slot. Since the Irish will be facing the Boilermakers on CBS at that time, it’s a safe assumption that they’ll be calling this game.

It will be nice to see the Irish get the top broadcast team on a network they typically don’t play on. If that’s not a sign of a respect towards them, it’s hard to know what is.

Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Panthers great Luke Kuechly lands new job for 2024 season

Panthers great Luke Kuechly is going back to college . . . sorta.

Luke Kuechly’s star continues to grow, even five years after he last played a down of football.

On Monday, CBS Sports announced that the Carolina Panthers great will join their college football coverage as an analyst for the upcoming 2024 season. Kuechly will call select games for the network this fall.

Analysis is nothing new to the former NFL Defensive Player of Year, five-time First-Team All-Pro and seven-time Pro Bowler—as he made a Hall of Fame career out of mastering film. He’s also made a career of it off the field, serving as one of the Panthers’ radio analysts over the past few years.

Kuechly’s last venture into the collegiate game was a dominant one. The Boston College legend and former unanimous All-American racked up an obscene amount of accolades prior to entering the NFL—including 2011’s ACC Defensive Player of the Year Award, Bronko Nagurski Trophy, Lott Trophy, Lombardi Award, Butkus Award and Jack Lambert Trophy.

He’d then be selected with the ninth overall pick by the Panthers in 2012—and the rest, of course, is history.

Oh, and don’t worry Panthers fans—you’ll still have yourselves some LUUUUUUKE. According to Joe Person of The Athletic, Kuechly will remain in the rotation for the team’s radio booth this season.

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Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese helped launch Sky-Fever to a 23-year WNBA single-game viewership record

A lot of people tuned in to watch Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese play on Sunday.

The Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese rivalry has officially set a stellar new record for WNBA viewership for the past few decades.

Sunday’s nationally televised game with the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky drew 2.252 million average viewers on the CBS broadcast, which the network says is the most-watched WNBA game on any network in 23 years.

Just in case there was any doubt that sports fans weren’t fully invested into Clark and Reese’s careers when they play each other, these screen-shattering viewership numbers should be proof enough that the hype is real.

The two teams will play each other again on Sunday in Chicago and then one last time for the 2024 regular season on Aug. 30. Judging by these ratings, these should be some of the biggest matchups left on the WNBA schedule.

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Former Vikings WR Nate Burleson named host of ‘Hollywood Squares’

A classic Hollywood game show is returning to TV, and it will be led by a familiar face to football fans, specifically Vikings fans.

A classic Hollywood game show is returning to TV, and it will be led by a familiar face to football fans, specifically Vikings fans.

Former wide receiver Nate Burleson, who serves as an in-studio analyst for CBS’ NFL coverage, is jumping into the host role for a revamped “Hollywood Squares” on that network. The game show originally started in 1966 and has gone through various starts and stops.

Burleson will work alongside actress and talk show host Drew Barrymore, who will reside in the famed Center Square. It is important to note that this role will not affect his work with the network’s NFL coverage.

Burleson was selected by the Minnesota Vikings in the third round of the 2003 NFL draft. In three years for the Vikings he caught 127 passes for 1,789 yards and 12 touchdowns. He also played for the Seattle Seahawks and Detroit Lions in his career.

Why isn’t Russell Wilson’s return to Denver a prime-time game?

Russell Wilson’s return to Denver should provide big ratings for CBS in Week 2, and the network protects select games during the NFL season.

After the Seattle Seahawks traded quarterback Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos in 2022, the two teams faced off on Monday Night Football in Week 1 that season.

This offseason, the Broncos cut Wilson and he signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Wilson is now set to return to Denver to face his former team in Week 2, but the game won’t be in a prime-time window.

The Broncos-Steelers showdown on Sept. 15 is set for 2:25 p.m. MT on CBS and because it’s so early in the season, it’s not eligible to be flexed. So why is Wilson’s return to Denver locked out of prime time?

Part of the reason could be that CBS likely wanted to “protect” the game. NBC (Sunday Night Football), ESPN (Monday Night Football) and Prime Video (Thursday Night Football) often get many of the NFL’s best matchups, leaving leftovers for CBS and Fox on Sunday afternoons. Consequently, networks can “protect” a game each week and while there hasn’t been official confirmation of it, CBS might have exercised that right for the Wilson Bowl.

Interestingly, Kirk Cousins returning to Minnesota to face the Vikings is not scheduled for prime time, either. Minnesota is set to host the Atlanta Falcons in Week 14, and Fox likely wants that game protected as well.

While Wilson and Cousins returning to face their former teams did not get prime time treatment from the NFL’s schedule makers, Sean Payton’s return to New Orleans did. The Saints will host the Broncos on Thursday Night Football in Week 7.

It’s also worth noting that while the Denver-Pittsburgh game won’t be at night, it could end up being close to nationally televised if CBS opts to broadcast it across most of the country (which seems likely). So there will be plenty of football fans tuning in when Wilson faces the Broncos in Week 2, it just won’t be an evening game.

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