5 Great NFL Announcing Moments from Week 6, Including Tony Romo's Smart Call
There's nothing like the NFL. And there's especially nothing like the NFL when something exciting happens. The best broadcasters in the world are tasked with bringing America's new favorite pastime to life. Usually they go viral for flubbing something. But more often than not they do great work as well.
For instance, here are a few awesome moments from Week 6.
Adam Amin sees the Red Sea parting
This FOX crew got more than its fair share of opportunities to enjoy points in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers-New Orleans Saints shootout so there's a lot of clips to choose from. But the best is probably Adam Amin's narration of New Orleans' Rashid Shaheed housing a punt early in the second quarter. It was one of those situations where being in the building and having the opportunity to see how everyone positioned was a tremendous advantage and Amin recognized that this return had a chance to be six within Shaheed's first few steps and only went up in excitement from there.
Jonathan Vilma is wowed
Even though Nick Sirianni doesn't much appreciate when Philadelphia Eagles fans boo their own team, they do a bunch of stuff that makes the booing understandable. Like turning turning an opportunity to take a 10-point lead just before halftime into an opportunity to be tied with the Cleveland Browns at the break after Rodney McLeod Jr. returned a blocked field goal 50 yards for a score. The sheer surprise of the moment was highlighted by FOX's Kenny Albert simply allowing fans to see what was happening and Jonathan Vilma getting in there with a few wows.
Tony Romo does it again
For all the heat (justified or not) Tony Romo has received in recent seasons on the CBS broadcast, it feels fair to point out when he does his thing well. As he did during the Baltimore Ravens' win over an upcoming Washington Commanders team featuring the most exciting rookie in the NFL, Jayden Daniels.
Romo became a fan favorite when he first began broadcasting because he could identify coverages and where the quarterback should throw from the booth in fewer than 10 seconds before the snap. He did it again on Daniels's awesome touchdown pass to Terry McLaurin: Romo told viewers what the QB sees, where he would throw it if he were the QB, and then watched as the QB did exactly that.
Even if it's a little annoying when Romo gets it wrong or gets so excited about the idea that he takes away from the play, it's still cool to see it unfold in real time when he is right.
Kevin Burkhardt handles the trickery
It may not have stood out at the time in contrast to how exciting the play was, but it's pretty hard to call a trick play as an NFL announcer. There are 22 men flying around on the field, the ball is very small in their hands, and the booth is very high up in the stands. So Kevin Burkhardt deserves some flowers for his cool, calm, and collected delivery of the Lions' reverse flea flicker that ended in a long Sam LaPorta touchdown.
Burkhardt tracked the ball and ratcheted up the intensity when the race to the end zone was on. A master at work.
Ian Eagle does not approve
Conversely, it's not that difficult to track a trick play when it goes sideways from the jump. As was the case when the Pittsburgh Steelers tried basically the same play the Lions did against the Las Vegas Raiders and Justin Fields got planted almost immediately. It was a deeply funny sequence for most viewers at home and Ian Eagle found the polite broadcaster way to describe how much of a disaster it was without stating as much outright.
"Get that out of the playbook" should be in the bags of every NFL announcer going forward.