Ian Eagle is a busy man when it comes to play-by-play. During the NFL season, he is not only calling games on CBS with Charles Davis on television. He is also the voice of Thursday Night Football games on Westwood One Radio.
By calling two games in some weeks, Eagle gets the chance to see more teams to help him later in the year if he gets a game with that team on CBS. He was a guest on the Sports Media With Richard Deitsch podcast this week and he mentioned that doing Thursday Night Football on radio allows him to look at the game differently.
“It makes you a better broadcaster. It makes you more aware of situations, it gives you more reps. It forces you to look at the game from a different lens.”
In addition to helping him with his prep, Eagle has a soft spot for calling games on the radio.
“It’s really fun. It’s a fun thing to do. It’s a blank canvas. It is very much a play-by-play guy’s medium and you feel that when you show up.”
By doing the radio broadcast, Eagle gets the chance to work with different analysts whether it’s Hall-Of-Famer Joe Thomas or Jason and Devin McCourty. It makes Eagle have to approach the game differently to find chemistry, but the goal is to find common ground with whichever analyst he works with.
“Joe Thomas is really smart, highly experienced, highly cerebral. It forces me to put a different hat on. Worked with the McCourty twins in Philadelphia – a whole different experience of a three-man booth and two guys that sound alike and think the game a certain way, but have a different way of doing it and they are still trying to find their way. They are so new in the business, but so natural and gifted in how they see the game.”
At the same time, the access for the Thursday Night Football radio crew is a little different compared to what the Amazon Prime broadcast gets. However, Eagle enjoys the opportunity to work with the same radio crew consistently and form a bond with them.
“You don’t meet with the coaches, you don’t meet the players, you don’t have the same access. You’re not necessarily treated quite the same in your support staff, getting you in the stadium, getting you out the stadium, escorting you to the booth. You don’t have the bodies on a radio crew. What you do have is a close-knit group, people you work with consistently.”
