Jim Nantz has called many signature events during his nearly 40 years at CBS Sports. He’ll reach a milestone on Sunday, though, that only a few NFL announcers have accomplished.
Nantz will call his 500th NFL game when the Buffalo Bills host the Denver Broncos in an AFC wild-card round game.
According to CBS records, Nantz is the first person in CBS’ storied NFL history to work 500 games as a play-by-play announcer. Pat Summerall did more than 500 games at CBS, but started as an analyst in 1962 after retiring from playing. He moved to play-by-play midway through the 1974 season.
“That’s a lot of games. It’s just staggering,” Nantz said. “With the historic relationship between the league and CBS that no one else can boast about and to think I have been given the blessing of calling more NFL games play-by-play than anyone in the network’s history, it’s meaningful and something that resonates for me.”
Nantz will be the eighth NFL TV play-by-play announcer to reach 500 games, but only the second with all of his games at one network.
Kenny Albert, who has done games since Fox got the NFL in 1994, reached the milestone on Oct. 13 when the Cleveland Browns faced the Philadelphia Eagles.
According to research from the 506 Sports Archive, Al Michaels, Dick Stockton, Don Criqui, Summerall, Kevin Harlan and Charlie Jones, are also part of The 500 Club.
Joe Buck is at 494 going into Monday night’s NFC wild-card game between the Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Rams in Arizona.
Sunday will be Nantz’s 69th playoff game, including seven Super Bowls and 20 AFC championship games. Last week’s Week 18 contest in Denver between the Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs was his 431st regular-season game.
Nantz’s first NFL game for CBS was on Oct. 16, 1988, when he called the Indianapolis Colts’ 35-31 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with Pat Haden. He called seven games between 1988 and ’90 before being added to the regular rotation of announcers in 1991. In 1993, he was part of the network’s No. 2 crew calling games with Randy Cross, and worked the NFC divisional round game between the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers on Jan. 16, 1994.
That would be the last NFL game Nantz would call for a while, though, as CBS lost the NFL rights to Fox.
CBS regained the rights to the league beginning with the 1998 season, but Nantz would not return to the booth until 2004. He hosted “The NFL Today” for six seasons (1998 though 2003).
In 1997, he considered an offer to host ABC’s “Good Morning America,” but CBS Sports president Sean McManus got him to stay with a persuasive pitch that ended up becoming reality.
“My contract was up, and Sean said, ‘You’re not going to do that. You’re staying right here. We’re going to get the NFL back.’” Nantz said. “I spent almost my youth daydreaming about working for CBS Sports one day. I loved the NFL presentation with Pat and Tom Brookshier, later Pat and John (Madden), and going back to Ray Scott. Sean knew me well enough from his days as an agent (at IMG), and he told me this is what I’ve always wanted to do.
“And on Jan. 12, 1998, guess what? We got the NFL back, just as he said we would.”
After moving from “The NFL Today″ studio, Nantz’s first game back doing play-by-play was the Pittsburgh Steelers hosting the Oakland Raiders on Sept. 12, 2004. This is his 21st season as CBS’ lead announcer. The first 13 were with Phil Simms before Tony Romo became the lead analyst in 2017. Tracy Wolfson has been the sideline reporter since 2014.
Nantz’s other regular partners were Haden, Cross, Ken Stabler, Tim Brant, Hank Stram and Dan Fouts. Bill Cowher and Boomer Esiason were also in the booth for one-game stints.
Nantz has plenty of memories from the first 499 games. He called Bill Belichick’s first NFL game as a head coach when the Cleveland Browns hosted the Dallas Cowboys on Sept. 1, 1991. He also has workedthree games that ended on Hail Mary passes, most recently Jayden Daniels’ 52-yard scramble and heave to Noah Brown earlier this season to lead the Washington Commanders over the Chicago Bears.
Nantz also got to call Kansas City’s overtime victory over San Francisco in last year’s Super Bowl, which set the record for the most-watched television program in U.S. history.
Besides seeing the beginning of the Troy Aikman-Brett Favre rivalry, Nantz has seen the memorable matchups between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning as well as being the soundtrack for the series of games between Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes and Buffalo’s Josh Allen. Nantz and Romo have called seven of the eight matchups between the two star quarterbacks.
Nantz, who turns 66 on May 17, shows no sign of slowing, especially with two more playoff games to call after Sunday.
“My time with Tony, I’ve never enjoyed it more. I’m having more fun now than I ever have in my career,” he said. “I’ve got a lot more work to do, but this is one of those weeks where you pause and think about the journey, how you got here and how fortunate you are.”
The Associated Press
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The Associated Press
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