Tony Romo and Jim Nantz serve as the top broadcasting team for NFL games on CBS. This means that they get to call the “best” game for the network during each week of the season, and now that the playoffs are underway, they will get the assignment when CBS has just one game.
They are scheduled to handle the AFC Championship game this week, but the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback has been under fire recently.
Tony Romo and Jim Nantz Reportedly Struggling in CBS Broadcast Booth for NFL Games
Andrew Marchand of “The Athletic” recently reported on the ongoing situation with the top team for CBS broadcasts. He touched on how the network allegedly approaches its high-paid analyst amid growing criticism and also mentioned a potential chemistry issue with Nantz, one of the most respected announcers in all of sports.
Marchand stated, “It seemed clear that they had a gameplan going in for Romo to hang back and let Nantz do the heavy lifting at the beginning … Tony Romo got the $180 million contract as an analyst for a variety of reasons, but his performance, he was a gunslinger, he didn’t know exactly what he was going to say, he was ahead of the game.”
“Then they tried to make him more of a game manager … but my sense is that they don’t fully trust him … That chemistry, that trust is not there … and it hasn’t been for a long time,” he added.
Romo burst onto the broadcasting scene following his NFL career with the Cowboys and was widely regarded as one of the best in the business. His unique style was unlike anyone else in his role, and most in the league respected his revolutionary approach, which was widely recognized as game-changing in the industry.
This resulted in CBS giving him the largest broadcasting contract in NFL history at the time he signed it, before his record was broken by the deal Fox gave to Tom Brady.
The issue is that as the years go on, the public has generally turned on Romo and his once-beloved style of calling games. Fans and analysts across the NFL have consistently voiced their criticisms as his overall perception has plummeted.
Romo is a Cowboys legend and actually had one of the best seasons of his career as a full-time starter in 2014, when he finished second among all quarterbacks in the PFSN NFL QB Impact Rankings.
His early returns as a broadcaster suggested he could become a legend in this career, but he appears to be declining instead. Improving the fractured chemistry with Nantz, as Marchand pointed out, may be one way he could turn things around.
