13 media-centric ideas, notes and takeaways off NFL divisional weekend:
1. Joe Buck’s oldest daughter is getting married in Mexico this week, so the ESPN broadcaster was understandably juggling fairly a psychological load when The Athletic reached him on Saturday evening following his name of the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs’ win over the Houston Texans. However Buck was lucid about his companion, Troy Aikman, who had an incredible broadcast on Saturday and has been terrific all season. (From my perspective, the Buck-Aikman-Lisa Salters staff was the very best working NFL asserting group this season.)
“What makes me comfortable is I really feel like Troy is lastly getting his simply due and credit score for being how nice he’s and the way onerous he works at this job,” Buck mentioned. “He had a implausible yr, and I’m so glad that he’s getting these accolades as a result of it’s lengthy overdue in my very biased opinion. I believed all of us had an incredible yr, and I really feel like we’ve gotten higher over time, which isn’t simple to do.
“It’s such a bizarre subjective enterprise and this stuff form of come and go in waves. I’m comfortable ESPN took an opportunity on us, to spend the cash that they spent. I believe in some ways they’re getting the very best of Troy, the very best of me, and the very best of us.”
Aikman constantly presents criticism of NFL officiating when warranted — and that pointed criticism separates him from the remainder of the highest NFL sport analysts. You all the time really feel he’s working for viewers and never the league.
His finest second on Saturday got here with 1:41 left within the third quarter when the officers known as an pointless roughness penalty on Texans linebacker Henry To’oTo’o for a success on Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. “Come on,” Aikman mentioned. “I imply, he’s a runner. I couldn’t disagree with that yet another. He barely will get hit.” The entire sequence is right here — and price watching.
There’s an expression in sports activities — the gamers all the time know — and right here’s former All-Professional offensive lineman Mitchell Schwartz on Aikman’s broadcasting work: “I believe Aikman calls an incredible sport. Most sincere of all of the analysts. And I don’t sense any private animosity in direction of Pat (Mahomes) the best way some assume he has. I don’t consider he’s mentioned something flawed or out of pocket tonight.”
“Troy has received, misplaced, bled, sweated, and he’s earned his opinion,” Buck mentioned. “And it’s by no means unfair. So long as it’s all the time truthful then there’s room for it. It’s additionally wanted. But it surely doesn’t matter the game, it doesn’t matter the league, if it’s MLB, the NBA, the NHL, the NFL, if their essential announcers are vital of officiating, it’s going to get their consideration.
“His (Aikman’s) opinion carries plenty of weight and he is aware of that and the league is aware of that. You’re all the time making an attempt to be as sincere as you may but in addition understanding that you just’re taking a test from a community that’s closely invested in a league. I believe over time Troy has been extra keen to go simply along with his intestine on air as a substitute of measuring each phrase. That’s what makes for excellent, sincere TV.”
2. Ask any NFL tv producer what they will need to have for a broadcast and plenty of will say a transparent and definitive picture of an important play of the sport. CBS landed three nice replays of the two-point conversion drop by Baltimore Ravens tight finish Mark Andrews with 1:33 left, together with a pylon digital camera picture the place you would make out the NFL emblem on the soccer. A heartbreaking picture for Ravens followers however a implausible one for a tv viewers:
You gotta catch that each one day – Tony Romo pic.twitter.com/KrJbYtDCzf
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) January 20, 2025
3. Final month I wrote in regards to the challenges a snow sport creates for an NFL broadcast. On Sunday, NBC skilled fluffy snow swirling throughout Lincoln Monetary Discipline in South Philly for the Eagles-Rams. It made for implausible imagery, nevertheless it’s price remembering that somebody is freezing bringing you these photos. Digital camera operators have to face nonetheless in very chilly situations for hours with very restricted alternatives for a break or to get heat.
Suzanne Smith, a longtime NFL director for CBS Sports activities, advised me that some operators will use heated vests, blow dryers or costume in ski fits to attempt to struggle the weather. The good photos you noticed from the Eagles–Rams sport are due to manufacturing folks equivalent to these, whose names you’ll by no means know however make the NFL what it’s.
“We knew it was going to snow in some unspecified time in the future throughout the sport, so we had the same plan to what we had in place in Buffalo (on Dec. 1),” NBC Sports activities “Sunday Night time Soccer” producer Rob Hyland mentioned after the Eagles-Rams sport.
“When the snow began coming down, the climate and the sphere situations grew to become a significant factor. All the pre-tape scenics had been dumped, and the emphasis coming out and in of breaks was to indicate the scene. The digital camera crew did an incredible job of showcasing the dwell scene in Philly, and the tape room did an incredible job of constructing positive that we replayed something that we missed dwell. It was such a particular solution to finish an unimaginable season of ‘Sunday Night time Soccer.’ I’m pleased with our staff.”
4. CBS Sports activities ought to open up a satellite tv for pc workplace in Kansas Metropolis given how usually they’ve been there within the postseason. Sunday’s AFC Championship Sport would be the ninth time the community will air a Chiefs residence playoff sport since 2018, which was Patrick Mahomes’ first yr as a starter. The checklist consists of six AFC Championship Video games (2018-2022 and 2024) and three divisional video games (2019, 2020 and 2021). Final yr’s sport between the Chiefs and Ravens (that was in Baltimore) was the most-watched AFC Championship Sport ever, drawing 55.5 million viewers.
5. This website has written a ton about Tom Brady over the past couple of weeks (responsible, as charged), from navigating his twin roles as Fox broadcaster and minority NFL proprietor to his enchancment as a broadcaster. My colleague Andrew Marchand just lately spoke with Brad Zager, the Fox Sports activities president of programming and manufacturing, who mentioned it was “ridiculous” for anybody to query Brady over a perceived battle of curiosity.
Zager cited conflicts within the sports activities media, and he’s appropriate; conflicts are in all places in sports activities media. They’ve additionally been written a couple of ton (as an illustration, right here’s an SI piece from me manner again in 2011 on conflicts in tennis broadcasting, a sport with an countless quantity of media conflicts).
Proudly owning a staff and calling video games as a supposed impartial observer is, after all, a battle by definition, however that’s not the true subject with Brady, not less than for me. Sports activities viewers deserve transparency, at a minimal, in regards to the battle when it arises. Transparency is the difficulty at hand as a result of folks watching the video games deserve that.
6. Talking of which: I do need to observe that Fox play-by-play broadcaster Kevin Burkhardt and Brady spent 34 seconds (not less than based mostly on my stopwatch) throughout Saturday’s Commanders-Lions broadcast acknowledging that Brady was certainly a part of the pinnacle teaching interviewing course of for the Raiders, together with interviews with Lions coordinators Aaron Glenn and Ben Johnson. It was hilariously temporary and supplied viewers completely zero perception, nevertheless it was acknowledged on air. My colleague Dan Shanoff supplied his ideas on Brady’s evening calling the Commanders and Lions.
7. Brady had an incredible line within the third quarter of the Commanders-Lions sport when discussing Washington quarterback Jayden Daniels: “When you find yourself in search of the chief of a franchise when all else goes flawed, the quarterback could make folks proper.” That completely describes Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson and all the all-time finest quarterbacks, together with Brady.
8. Fox averaged 33.6 million viewers for Commanders-Lions on Saturday evening. That’s considerably down from final yr’s Saturday evening sport within the divisional spherical (37.5 million viewers for 49ers–Packers on Fox).
9. Kirk Cousins is the most recent energetic NFL participant to affix the set of an ESPN pregame present and like Fred Warner final week, Cousins confirmed he has a future within the career if he needs it.
Requested about Arrowhead Stadium, Cousins delivered a solution you don’t usually hear on an NFL program:
“I’ve a love-hate relationship with this place,” Cousins mentioned. “I hate it as a result of it’s loud and the opponent you’re going in opposition to is iconic. However I adore it as a result of it is likely one of the few stadiums within the league that has not gone company. There may be Lambeau Discipline, there’s Buffalo, after which there’s Arrowhead. Grass area, there’s not a bunch of suites, followers simply offer you that really feel that you’re at a extremely essential, actually huge highschool sport. It goes again to the purity of why you’re keen on the sport of soccer.”
Cousins additionally had a memorable line about Patrick Mahomes: “There’s instances I watch Pat play, and it’s onerous to consider we play the identical place.”
Discussing Cousins as a broadcaster, ESPN vp Seth Markman mentioned: “I believed he was a pure. No query in my thoughts he can have an incredible profession in broadcasting. Beloved what number of questions he requested in regards to the course of going into as we speak. You’ll see him in a sales space or a desk in just a few years.”
10. For a league so tethered to sports activities playing — all of sports activities media is today — it’s very foolish that NFL broadcasters can not point out the precise unfold of a sport or an over-under as the sport is concluding. Buck and Aikman did an amusing job of invoking the outdated Al Michaels there-is-no-gambling-in-Casablanca schtick over the last 15 seconds of the Chiefs-Texans sport.
11. If you happen to missed it: The Athletic’s Caoimhe O’Neil wrote a implausible story on the London Payments Backers bar, the place followers of the Buffalo Payments within the famed U.Ok. metropolis meet at The Fitzrovia Belle on Tottenham Courtroom Highway within the West Finish of central London to observe the Payments play. The bar/resort has performed host to Western New Yorkers in addition to British and worldwide followers with an allegiance to Buffalo. The New York Instances’ Ken Belson additionally wrote an fascinating piece on long-suffering NFL followers in Canada.
12. Another enjoyable anecdote from Joe Buck: He mentioned he and his spouse, ESPN reporter Michelle Beisner-Buck, had been within the tunnel exterior Kansas Metropolis’s locker room earlier than the sport when Taylor Swift and her group walked by means of. Buck mentioned Scott Swift, Taylor’s father, handed him and Michelle some guitar picks from Swift. “Taylor was like, ‘Oh, my God, my dad loves giving these out,’” Buck mentioned.
“It was only a candy second. I met her with my daughters years in the past when she sang the anthem on the World Collection. She and Caitlin Clark sat slightly below our sales space, and Caitlin is a participant and particular person I like tremendously, so to have the ability to rattle by means of simply the tip of Caitlin’s resume on-air was cool.
“It’s an incredible scene at Arrowhead. It’s simple to do video games there as a result of the sales space is so good. It’s extensive open and near the sphere. The place is simply throbbing with vitality. It simply makes for excellent broadcasts.”
13. Stylish transfer by Burkhardt and Fox sideline reporter Erin Andrews to give you a artistic solution to increase cash for folks coping with the horrible California wildfires. The broadcasters have raised practically $100,000 by providing a singular fan expertise.
“Erin and I dwell in LA and whereas we’re each lucky and our households are OK, searching our door and seeing the black smoke-filled sky and smelling the fires simply had us feeling helpless and unhappy,” Burkhardt mentioned. “We wished to search out the easiest way to assist these really impacted, so we began speaking with our (Fox Sports activities senior vp) boss Jacob Ullman and (Crimson Cross senior director and former CAA agent) Becky Sendrow.
“We wished to have donations go on to the wildfire victims, and we talked about how we may increase essentially the most cash doable to try this. Our reply was to present away a sport expertise for subsequent yr to hold with us for the weekend. We had been very delicate about making it a ‘contest’ for the reason that state of affairs is so devastating. It simply felt private, so we try to make use of our platform to assist, and I can’t thank everybody sufficient for donating with us and hope we might help some individuals who really want it.”
(Picture by Julio Aguilar / Getty Photographs)