The staff of Awful Announcing named their favorite television broadcast booths for NFL play-by-play. The only team to get more than one vote was Kevin Harlan and Rich Gannon on CBS.
Jay Rigdon gave his vote to Harlan and Gannon mostly because of Harlan, writing “he’s dynamic in the best ways for big moments while dialing it back for more quiet periods, and he always feels like he’s complementing the game.” Phillip Rupp says Harlan and Gannon earned his vote for their teamwork. “Gannon is great at picking his moment to step in and complement Harlan’s play-by-play. They seem to work well together and they don’t really do anything that would make me not like them, so they’re my pick.”
The CBS team of Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts got Matt Clapp’s vote. “It wouldn’t matter who the color commentator is (of the current ones; not Phil Simms), I’m going with the Ian Eagle team. He simply makes any game more entertaining to me and brings that March Madness flavor to the NFL.”
Ben Koo says the addition of Tony Romo to CBS’s A-team has made that his favorite play-by-play booth in the NFL. “I’m partial to how much more knowledgeable and insightful he is compared to other color guys, but I generally just like his goofy energy. He seems totally unconcerned with the normal pitfalls of the job and just kind of blabs, most of which either lands as insightful or funny.”
The final vote was from Joe Lucia. His vote goes to the Fox team of Kevin Burkhardt and Charles Davis. He says viewers may have been understandably skeptical of how a baseball play-by-play guy like Burkhardt would do on an NFL broadcast, but “he’s taken to calling the NFL like a fish to water.” Lucia also compliments Davis’s ability to cover and learn as much about the NFL as he has about college football.
