Week 12 of the NFL season is here, and ‘Sunday Night Football” on NBC will feature a huge NFC showdown between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Los Angeles Rams.
The game also holds special significance for longtime broadcaster and former NFL wide receiver Cris Collinsworth, who will be calling the action alongside play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico.
NBC announced this week that Sunday will mark Collinsworth’s 500th career game in the broadcast booth—a milestone that came as a genuine surprise to him.
“That was just stunning to me,” Collinsworth said. “If you’d asked me, I would have said I’d worked maybe 250 or 300 games… Wow, how did that happen?”
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Collinsworth has worked alongside 13 different play-by-play announcers throughout his career, with his longest-running partnership coming with the legendary Al Michaels, with whom he called 263 games. Michaels is now calling “Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video alongside Kirk Herbstreit.
“I spent 13 years with Cris and loved every moment,” said Al Michaels. “He has humor and understands the game on a level that’s almost unparalleled. There are others who understand it as well, but Cris has the ability to make it very accessible.”
Tirico, who will call his 96th game with Collinsworth on Sunday and is on track to surpass the 100-game mark later this season, also spoke about working with him. “He’s the smartest guy in most every room he’s in, and he never acts like it,” Tirico said.
Collinsworth spent eight seasons in the NFL as a wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals. He was a three-time Pro Bowler and recorded four seasons with over 1,000 receiving yards. Broadcasting wasn’t originally in his plans—he actually wanted to become a lawyer, according to the Los Angeles Times—but football was something he could never shake.
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