The Maestro and the Man Who Won’t Shut Up

Let’s start with the scab, because in Baltimore we never really let it heal anyway.

Regular season finale. Steelers. The AFC North and the last playoff ticket on the table. Tyler Loop lines up from 44 as time expires, and the kick sails wide. Pittsburgh takes the division. The Ravens go home.

Most of us would rather not revisit that one. But go back and listen to the seconds before the snap, because that’s where Mike Tirico reminded everyone why he’s the best in the business.

With the season hanging on a rookie’s right leg, Tirico didn’t just fill air. He walked the country through Justin Tucker‘s standing as the most accurate kicker in NFL history. He explained that the Ravens scoured the country talking to kickers coming out of college before deciding Loop was “made of the right stuff” for exactly that moment. Then the snap, and a call that landed perfectly either way.

Awful Announcing owner Ben Koo broke it down afterward and asked the obvious question: how many announcers would even know the story of Baltimore’s search for Tucker’s successor? His answer was very few. Koo’s thesis on Tirico is simple and correct. The man is a nerd about preparation, and it shows up every single time.

Here’s the part that should sting a little for what comes later in this column: Cris Collinsworth agreed. Talking with CNBC’s Alex Sherman after the season, Collinsworth credited Tirico’s homework on Loop for turning a missed field goal into a moment viewers actually felt, because by the time the ball left the tee, the audience knew the kid.

He Knows the Rulebook Better Than Some Officials

Rules analyst Terry McAulay is as good as it gets, and NBC is smart to have him. But according to Koo, Tirico doesn’t need the help nearly as much as most of his peers. He seems to know every rule, however obscure or new, including why it changed and what the replay criteria are for overturning a call. He lets McAulay do his job. He just already knows the answer.

That’s not a football trick. It’s who he is.

Take May 10 of this year. Tirico delivers the commencement address at Syracuse, then hours later he’s courtside calling Spurs-Timberwolves in the second round of the NBA playoffs. Victor Wembanyama drops an elbow on Naz Reid. On the very first replay, Tirico flags that it could be a flagrant 2, which means Wemby could be gone.

He was right. And during the four-minute review that followed, the kind of dead air most broadcasters dread, Tirico narrated every angle, laid out the criteria for flagrant fouls, told viewers who was actually making the decision, explained why the arena crowd reacted when it did, and even read Wembanyama’s lips as the big man learned he’d been ejected. Awful Announcing called it a “masterclass.” The Spun’s Andrew Holleran went further, arguing flatly that nobody in sports does the job better right now.

Adjustments on the fly? That’s the whole resume.

The Blowout Whisperer

Koo made another point that doesn’t get enough attention. When a game turns into a 38-10 snoozer, Tirico essentially becomes a podcast host. Who’s in a contract year. Who has a new front office. What the cap situation looks like. Koo, an Ohio State fan, said Tirico used to drop facts during Buckeyes basketball broadcasts about a mid-level recruit’s high school career that even diehards didn’t know. That kind of recall keeps people from reaching for the remote when the scoreboard gives them every reason to.

The hardware backs it up. Tirico won the 2025 Awfulies for best play-by-play announcer. In February he became the first U.S. broadcaster to call a Super Bowl and host a Winter Olympics in the same year, doing Super Bowl LX and then anchoring NBC’s Milan Cortina primetime coverage. In May, Sunday Night Football won the Sports Emmy for Outstanding Live Sports Series, and Tirico took home the play-by-play Emmy, making him only the second broadcaster, along with Bob Costas, to win Sports Emmys for both play-by-play and hosting.

Sports Media Watch described his Super Bowl work as “preternaturally smooth,” noting his greatest gift may be looking like he’s always been in whatever chair he’s sitting in. And Collinsworth, again, said it best to the Times Union in February: “Nobody outworks the guy.”

Which brings us to the guy sitting next to him.

The King of Hyperbole

Cris Collinsworth began his 18th season in the SNF booth this week, and it took Wednesday night’s Patriots-Seahawks opener about one quarter to reignite the familiar social media bonfire.

Pro Football Network rounded up the reaction, and it wasn’t subtle. Fans said he talks way too much, that they’d already hit their limit, and that they had muted the broadcast before halftime (which, unfortunately, means muting Tirico too). One fan pointed out that Collinsworth hailed a New England possession as a “masterclass drive” when a pass interference flag had handed the Patriots the ball at the 1.

A masterclass drive. Remember that word, because we just used it for Tirico’s handling of a four-minute NBA replay review. There’s a difference between earning the superlative and spraying it on everything that moves.

That’s the heart of the complaint. Judd Zulgad, who covered the sports TV and radio beat for the Minneapolis Star Tribune for eight years, rates the SNF booth highly overall but wrote that Collinsworth “no longer has the fastball” he once did, adding that his urge to praise players and coaches can go over the top.

Fans have turned the tendency into a sport. During last January’s Patriots-Chargers wild card game, one viewer posted a Collinsworth drinking game: take a drink for “Here’s a guy,” for Patrick Mahomes comparisons, for guttural excited noises, for over-the-top praise, and for comparing players to gods or mythical creatures. That same night, per Pro Football Network, viewers flagged him for reportedly mixing up or mispronouncing names including Tre Harris, Tuli Tuipulotu, Daiyan Henley and Rhamondre Stevenson. That’s not a style complaint. That’s a preparation complaint, and it looks especially rough next to a partner who can recite a rookie kicker’s backstory.

Too Many Words, Not Enough Insight

The volume issue isn’t just a Twitter thing. During Super Bowl LX, Richard Deitsch, one of the most respected sports media reporters in the country, observed that while Tony Romo takes the heat for talking too much, Collinsworth may actually talk more than any other lead NFL analyst. Fans piled on, with one saying he sounds like he’s “paid by the word.”

Awful Announcing’s annual reader rankings tell a similar story. In the 2024 edition, commenters called Collinsworth insufferable for a decade and begged him to find someone other than Mahomes to measure quarterbacks against, while others mocked his affection for Aaron Rodgers. A recurring theme: an A for Tirico, a D for Collinsworth. In 2025, one reader said the grade was all on Collinsworth because he “makes too many mistakes and controversial comments,” and others admitted to muting Sunday night games entirely. Awful Announcing itself noted that the tone of the comments was more negative than the booth’s numerical grade suggested.

Then there’s the PFF of it all. Collinsworth owns Pro Football Focus, and NBC puts PFF grades on screen during player introductions. Retired two-time Super Bowl champion Chris Long publicly called for those grades to come off the broadcast, and J.J. Watt admitted he’s always had issues with them. Collinsworth’s response in October on “The Up & Adams Show” was to thank the critics for helping PFF’s sales.

Hard to think of a less self-aware answer from a guy whose analysis is being questioned for leaning on hype.

The guy is tone-deaf as is the network.

To Be Fair

I’m not going to pretend it’s unanimous, because it isn’t, and pretending otherwise would make me no better than the hyperbole I’m criticizing.

The New York Times once called Collinsworth football’s wisest color commentator, and the Houston Chronicle praised him as among the most thoughtful analysts in the game. I’m guessing that the Giants and Texans won their games prior to the media accolades from NY and Houston. But I digress.

Sports Media Watch and Sports Illustrated both gave NBC’s Super Bowl LX broadcast solid marks, and SI actually applauded Collinsworth’s candor when Drake Maye threw an interception right after Collinsworth praised his reads, and Collinsworth simply admitted, “I’ve got nothing for you here.” More of that, please. Awful Announcing’s readers also still ranked Tirico and Collinsworth third among NFL booths in 2025, with more than half the votes being A grades.

And NBC clearly isn’t listening to the mute-button crowd. According to The Athletic, Collinsworth signed an extension running through the 2029-30 season at roughly $12.5 million a year, which lines him up to call Super Bowl 64.

“So here’s a guy…” 

The truth is that NBC’s booth works because of Tirico. He preps like a film-room grinder, knows the rules like a replacement official, and has the recall to turn a dead replay review or a fourth-quarter blowout into must-listen television. His Loop setup, painful as it is to relive here in Baltimore, is what great play-by-play sounds like.

Collinsworth, meanwhile, has become the NFL’s most reliable source of superlatives, and when everything is a masterclass, nothing is. Critics like Zulgad and Deitsch say it more politely than the folks lighting up social media every Sunday night, but they’re describing the same thing: an analyst who talks more and reveals less than he used to.

He’s under contract through Super Bowl 64. So here’s a guy who’s going to be around for a while.

Good thing the other guy in the booth is worth the price of admission.

The post The Maestro and the Man Who Won’t Shut Up appeared first on Russell Street Report.