Since 1990, Terry Bradshaw has been a studio analyst on Sundays for NFL football broadcasts. I was 7 when he started sitting behind a desk and talking about football, and I liked him a lot. My dad was sometimes out actually covering football at the time; a lot of my early memories involve my mom and I sitting down to watch a whole day of football. We always watched the CBS pregame show, then followed Bradshaw to Fox when they got the rights in 1994.
Terry Bradshaw is still reading highlights in 2021, only instead of just being alongside Greg Gumbel he’s alongside four other dudes. Sometimes during the pregame show I think there may be as many as 50 other people on camera at any one time. I still like Bradshaw. Terry, I call him. But while I found him funny and engaging when I was a kid, now I mostly just wait for him to read highlights while his co-hosts yuk it up behind him. It is, as it has been for some time, one of the strangest and most thrilling moments on TV in any given week.
Take this thrilling recap of the Ravens-Lions game, which Baltimore won on Justin Tucker’s NFL record 66-yard field goal. I pulled this from WTAT-TV in Charleston.
Whew! Just great, right? Bradshaw notes that the score is “10-all, Baltimore” and then goes on to note Ryan Santoso’s 34-yard field goal as Baltimore hangs on for the win. Great recap! I think you can even see that he's a little upset at himself after the highlight.
You can see how this happened. Here’s an earlier recap, which I pulled from WJBK-TV in Detroit, where the score is actually 10-0 at the time.
Presumably there was another recap, before Tucker’s game-winning field goal, that ended with the Lions taking the lead on Santoso’s field goal.
So anyway: Bradshaw has to read a bunch of highlights in a row, all of which can change easily! I’m sure it’s hard! But maybe rip up the script for a bit if a kicker hits a 66-yard game-winning field goal. Or don’t, really, as I enjoyed this bit.
h/t @OldBeigeGuy
