It was not easy to watch last night’s Eagles-Bears game and not think about the news that while ESPN has re-signed Joe Buck to a new contract, Troy Aikman hasn’t been inked to a new deal. Aikman discussed the fact that is contract with ESPN is up after this season with Richard Deitsch last week.

Buck and Aikman make up the best booth in the NFL. No broadcast crew on any network gives off “big feel” for a game like Buck and Aikman. They arecsmoother than any other crew. They have more chemistry than any other crew. And they’ve been doing this together for 20-plus years.

Why on earth would ESPN not doing everything it could to make sure Aikman remains at the network? Why would ESPN, which had many years of a substandard “Monday Night Football” booth before bringing over Buck and Aikman from Fox five years ago, even consider breaking up the best broadcast partnership in the league?

Something is fishy here.

Usually, whenever there is a case like this, the answer is always money. The case of Aikman, however, does not seem like a money issue.

ESPN has given Stephen A. Smith a $100 million contract. ESPN pays Pat McAfee $60 to $65 million per year. And, according to the Athletic’s Andrew Marchand, ESPN just gave Joe Buck a $108 million contract extension.

Guess what? ESPN can pay Troy Aikman whatever he is asking for. That’s why this seems fishy to me. Something doesn’t add up here.

I speculated on Monday’s Traina Thoughts Podcast that maybe ESPN wants to make a play for Fox’s Greg Olsen when his contract expires after this season? Or maybe ESPN wants to make a pitch for Travis Kelce if he retires after this season.

While I understand the appeal of those scenarios (Olsen is fantastic analyst who is very popular and Kelce is married to the most famous woman on the planet), it still makes no sense to me that ESPN would consider breaking up Buck and Aikman.

Another layer of weirdness here is that ESPN/ABC will broadcast this season’s Super Bowl. Making Aikman a free agent going into the network’s biggest broadcast of all time is just bizarre.

Hopefully the folks at ESPN come to their senses and get Aikman re-signed sooner than later, but the vibes with this whole thing sure feel like something is off.

Other Stuff

• Charles Barkley gave another interview on Monday in which he stated he will be retiring from “Inside the NBA” after this season. Barkley has said this for many years now, so who knows if it will happen or not.

• I give Mike Tomlin credit here. I didn’t think the former coach, who likley wants to beome a head coach again, would go after coaches in his new role on NBC’s studio show, but he pulled no punches in criticizing Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer for botching the end of the Dallas’s heartbreaking loss to Baltimore on Sunday.

• Here are the broadcast crews for the MLB wild-card round that will air on NBC and Peacok this week.

Phillies-Braves, NBC: Matt Vasgersian, John Kruk, C.J. Nitkowski, Joey Votto

White Sox-Astros, Peacock: Tom McCarthy, Steve Stone, Geoff Blum, Adam Ottavino

Red Sox-Yankees, NBC: Jason Benetti, Lou Merloni, Joe Girardi, Anthony Rizzo

Cubs-Padres, Peacock: Dave Flemming, Jim Deshaies, Mark Grant, Clayton Kershaw

• Among all the controversy, the WNBA generated their best regualr season ratings ever for ESPN.

• If you’re a wrestling fan, you’re gonna want to check out this new show from Jim Cornette, who is a must-watch no matter what he does. Nobody is more entertaining while talking about anything related to wrestling than Cornette.

The Traina Thoughts Podcast

On Monday’s edition of “The Traina Thoughts Podcast,” I talked about the latest sports media news and covered what took place in college football and the NFL from the past weekend.

Topics discussed include a fantastic call by a college football ref; a must-year call from the Iowa student radio station after the Hawkeyes shocking win against Michigan; why this could be a big week for Tony Romo's future at CBS; what's going on with Troy Aikman and ESPN; Jim Nantz and J.J. Watt had their best broadcast of the season with Nantz delivering a great call at the end of the Ravens thrilling win over the Cowboys; NBC takes over the MLB wild-card round; the trailer for the new John Madden movie and much more.The show closed with a Mailbag segment in which I answered listener-submitted questions.

You can watch the podcast on YouTube or listen to it below.

In Closing

This made me laugh out loud.

Back when ESPN didn’t have a strong booth for “Monday Night Football,” the ManningCast was kind of a godsend.

The ManningCast was also fresh, fun and innovative when it debuted in 2021.

But now, in year six, the ManningCast is facing a significant drop in the ratings.

After not drawing a million viewers for any edition of the "ManningCast in 2025, viewership has continued to drop at the start of the 2026 season. Week 1’s ManningCast drew 705,00 viewers. Week 2 pulled in 661,000 viewers.

NFL fans don’t have the NEED to watch the ManningCast since ESPN has the best broadcast crew in the sport with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. That has undoubtedly hurt the ManningCast. In addition, alt-casts and watch-alongs are no longer unique.

Obviously, most alt-casts and watch-alongs don’t have hosts with the reputations of Peyton and Eli Manning. The strength of the ManningCast has always been and will always be, Peyton and Eli.

It would be fascinating to see the ManningCast experiment one week without guests. Just like the brothers cook and see what happens. I would think if you’re a big NFL fan and you have a good game going on or a game featuring a lot happening, like in this past Monday’s Giants-Rams game, you want to hear from Peyton and Eli. Not Bryan Cranston. No matter how big of a “Breaking Bad” fan you are.

While I don’t expect the ManningCast to shun guests, if I were in charge of the ManningCast, the first thing I’d do is get rid of the policy that you need guests who have ties to the teams involved in the game. Just get the best guests possible each week. Don’t overthink it. Was anybody in America clamoring to hear from Jeremy Shockey and Andrew Whitworth this past week because they were connected to the Giants and Rams, respectively? The answer would be no.

But at the end of the day, I’m not sure the viewership numbers for the ManningCast matter that much. Much like Fox is paying Tom Brady $375 million because it wants to be in business with Tom Brady, ESPN wants to be in business with Peyton Manning. Peyton and Eli do a variety of things for ESPN and can be found on other shows besides the ManningCast. ESPN is not just paying them for the 12 Monday nights they do the alt-cast.

It’s a good look for ESPN to have a Peyton and Eli broadcast on Monday nights no matter how many people are or aren’t watch.

Week 2 NFL Ratings Roundup

The NFL had some strong viewership numbers for Week 2.

The Lions-Bills games kicked off the week with 18.6 million viewers on “Thursday Night Football.”

CBS pulled in a huge number for its 1 p.m. singleheader window, led by Steelers-Patriots, with 19.3 million viewers.

Fox had the best number of the week for the 4:25 p.m. slot featuring Commanders-Cowboys with 27.2 million viewers.

“Sunday Night Football” on NBC drew 24.3 million viewers for the Colts-Chiefs thriller.

Week 2 closed out with Giants-Rams pulling in 19.4 million viewers for ESPN on “Monday Night Football.”

Other Stuff

• I don’t understand why anyone at “First Take” would ask Jordan Rodgers, who is a college football analyst, by the way, to go on television and discuss his brother, Aaron. Why was he put in this position? Who would take anything he says seriously? He’s not going to go on national television and give an honest assessment of his brother’s play. And who can blame him? What does he get out of going on ESPN and saying that Aaron Rodgers is just a medicore quarterback these days? What a baffling decision here by “First Take.”

• Jaxon Dart’s season-ending injury is obviously devastating for the Giants and their fans. How does it affect the networks?

It’s a mixed bad. The NFL wants to the Giants to be good and relevant because New York is the topi television market in the country. However, in terms of the prime time schedule, the Dart injury isn’t

The Giants’ next six games are regional games airing at 1 p.m on Sunday.

They have just two prime time games the rest of the season: Week 10 on “Thursday Night Football” vs. Washington and Week 16 on “Monday Night Football” at Detroit.

• Luke Kuechly, who I enjoyed on Netflix’s Week 1 Rams-Nineres game, will call his first game for CBS this Sunday. He’ll work with play-by-play voice Chris Lewis on the Raiders-Saints game.

• I ask this question regularly and no one ever seems to have an answer for me. Tell me again how cutting the cord is cheaper than cable when streaming services keep raising their prices every few months. Disney and Hulu are the latest to take more of your money.

• I’m a couple of days late on this, but I had to include this week’s “Bad Beats” segment after the N.C. St-Vanderbilt insanity.

• This was the funniest thing I’ve seen all week.

The Traina Thoughts Podcast

This week’s guest was ESPN’s Peter Scharger.

Schrager talked about getting his own show, "Big Day With Peter Schrager," what he wants the show to be, how much control he has over the show, branching out beyond NFL, whether he feels pressure to draw ratings and why he wants to lean on nostalgia. Schrager also touches on NFL topics including the Rams, Broncos, Chiefs, Niners and Jaxson Dart.

In addition, Schrager talks about whether he can keep up with pop culture while taking on the responsibility of having his own show, reports that he's not allowed to appear on Bill Simmons's podcast, ESPN taking over NFL Network, his bewilderment at the cost of flights, his new love for playing golf and an experience at an outstanding Long Island Chinese restaurant that is my go-to.

You watch the podcast below on YouTube or you can listen to it on Apple, Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts.

In Closing

This “interview” with Blake Griffin is one of the funniest things I’ve seen online in recent memory. The podcast, “Boy Talk Talk Show” is hosted by Paul Walter Hauser and Julian Sergi. It’s unlike any other podcast you’ve ever watched. The humor may not be for anyone, but if you like awkward, dry humor, you will love this.

It’s always dicey to make declarations based off what you see on Twitter, but it certainly seems like open season on ESPN’s “College GameDay.”

Two main narratives that have developed are 1) the presence of Pat McAfee and 2) the show relying too much on SEC venues.

The McAfee thing is pretty straightforward: Either you enjoy Pat or you don’t. It’s subjective. I don’t understand how anyone could not love McAfee’s field-goal kicking contest, but, again, this is subjective.

I do think there is an element of the McAfee backlash that could be chalked up to overexposure. McAfee’s afternoon show is on ESPN five days a week, he’s on “GameDay,” now he’s on “Monday Night Countdown” and you can also throw in alt-casts that he anchors.

I also think some of the backlash is a pile-on effect. It does seem like some people bash McAfee because when you want engagement, you just bash whoever the biggest people are in media.

As for the claim of SEC bias because “GameDay” will be at an SEC site for the fourth week in a row this Saturday, that’s just business.

Let me be clear about one thing: I’d love to see “GameDay” visit more small school and offbeat schools. I think that would be good for the show and the sport. But I’m not gonna bitch and complain because “GameDay” chooses SEC schools over Big Ten schools or ACC schools or Big 12 schools.

I’d like the people who are mad that “GameDay” will broadcast from Tennessee this Saturday to tell me where the show should have gone.

These are the games between ranked opponents:

Ole Miss at Florida
Iowa at Michigan
Texas A&M-LSU
Oregon-USC
Missouri-Miss St.

Two of those games feature non-SEC schools. “GameDay” has been to the Big House a million times and I’m sure they’ve been to USC plenty. You cannot make a legit argument that ESPN should’ve chosen one of those games over Texas vs. Tennessee.

I know most of you will hate hearing this, but here’s the No. 1 reason why ESPN needs to just ignore all of the “GameDay” critics: ratings.

You cannot argue with the show’s success when it comes to the business side.

Last season, “College GameDay” averaged 2.7 million viewers. Fox’s “Big Noon Kickoff” averaged 1.8 million viewers. And that’s with Fox playing games with the numbers and only counting the 11 am to Noon hour even though the show is on the air at 10 am. If you compared “GameDay” to “Big Noon Kickoff” from 10 am to Noon, the ratings gap is even wider.

“GameDay” was in Austin for Week ahead of the Ohio State-Texas game. The show pulled in 2.7 million viewers. It was “GameDay’s” most-watched Week 2 episode ever.

Meanwhile, no one seems to ever have an issue with where Fox sends its “Big Noon Kickoff” crew.

The biggest game of Week 3, and one of the biggest games of the entire season thanks to the Lane Kiffin saga, was LSU at Ole Miss. I didn’t see anyone criticize “Big Noon Kickoff” for not doing their show at the Grove.

Where was “Big Noon Kickoff” last week? At that college hotbed known as London, England. Why were they there? Because Fox carried the Arizona State-Kansas game.

In Week 2, “Big Noon Kickoff” took place at the Big House? Why? Because Fox was airing Oklahoma at Michigan that day.

In Week 1, “Big Noon Kickoff” was in Bloomington? Why? Because Fox was airing the riveting North Texas vs. indiana game that ended 52-16.

You may not like that ESPN goes heavy on SEC schools for “GameDay” but this is what the business is. And from a business perspective, you cannot deny that “GameDay” is thriving by doing things their way.

Other Stuff

• Kevin Harlan. That’s all.

• This was a funny moment from Monday’s Blue Jays-Tigers game in which the director and/or camera operator had some fun a Jason Benetti’s expense.

• Doc Rivers, who was ESPN’s lead NBA analyst for a minute in 2023-24 season before becoming head coach of the Bucks, has joined NBC.

• I thought this was fake when I first saw it and someone was making a joke about always finishing fifth or third, but this is actually real. The Tigers will now play in “Fifth Third Park.” I have no idea what Fifth Third is but this has to be the worst stadium name in baseball.

• Not surprisingly, the best reaction to Vanderbilt’s improbable and absurd cover against N.C. State, came from Scott Van Pelt and Stanford Steve.

The Traina Thoughts Podcast

Check out my weekly Monday edition of “The Traina Thoughts Podcast” where I went through the best and worst of sports media from the past week.

And in case you missed last week’s show with radio legend, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, you can watch that below.

You can also listen to all episodes of The Traina Thoughts Podcast on Apple, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.

In Closing

This was a wonderful video to see in my TikTok algorithm.

@wvmdkid84Two of the all time greats 😁❤️🤣#BobbyTheBrainHeenan #GorillaMonsoon #WWF #ProWrestling #80s

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With Prime Video’s first game of the season taking place tonight in Buffalo’s brand new Highmark Stadium, as the Bills host the Lions, I was curious something.

How many stadiums has Al Michaels, who has the call of tonight’s game with Kirk Herbstreit, broadcasted an NFL game from.

So, I called Michaels and posed that question to him. He didn’t have the exact number off the top of his head, so he worked through it with me on the phone.

“Every existing stadium, so that’s 32,” said Michaels, before adding, “plus the old Giants Stadium, the L.A. Coliseum, Oakland, the AstroDome with the old Oilers, the Orange Bowl in Miami, Veterans Stadium, Riverfront Stadium, Three Rivers Stadium, the old Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Candlestick, of course.”

Michaels was far from done.

“Atlanta, I think I did one in the old stadium and in the Georgia Dome, the old Metrodome and Metropolitan Stadium in Minneapolis, where I did my first every NFL game.

“Buffalo at Minnesota, October 1971. That was for NBC, but NBC had the rights to postseason baseball so the NBC station in Buffalo opted to carry the baseball game and the football game was farmed out to a UHF station.

“I did that game with Johnny Morris and two of the players in the game for the Buffalo Bills: O.J. Simpson and Al Cowlings. And those were the years before the home team was able to televise the game to their market, so that game wasn’t even on in Minneapolis, and was only on a UHF station in Buffalo. Think about that.”

Back to stadiums Michaels has worked in while calling NFL games.

“San Diego Stadium, Dignity Health Sports Park, where the Chargers played when they were waiting to move into SoFi. Sun Devil Stadium, don’t forget the Kingdome and old Texas Stadium in Irving, the Silverdome, Shea Stadium.”

At this point, even Michaels couldn’t believe this list.

“Now that I’m thinking, holy shit, you’re right I’ve done a ton.”

But he wasn’t done.

“University of Minnesota Stadium, when they were building U.S. Bank, the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, Mile High in Denver, Schaefer Stadium in New England, RFK. Is that insane or what?”

A quick, unofficial count, including today’s stadiums, would have Michaels at 58 stadiums where he has worked in the booth calling an NFL game.

So, which stadium had the best booth and which had the worst?

“Believe it or not,” said Michaels, “the best was opened in 1972: Arrowhead. Why? They built it vertically and the booth is sitting right over the field. It’s the best naked eye vantage point ever.

“The worst would be when the 49ers moved into Candlestick and they turned the baseball field into the football stadium and the boradcast booth was high atop the upper deck. One night on “Monday Night Football,” I said, ‘I wouldn’t say we’re very high right now, but we’re looking down on the blimp.’ Candlestick was the worst stadium ever on every level.”

When I spoke to Michaels he still hasn’t been to Highmark Stadium, but he likes what they did in Buffalo.

“[Highmark] will probably be the last open air stadium in these climates. Maybe they’ll build one in some southern climates, like if they ever redo Miami or Tampa, it would probably be outside.

“The stadiums now, most of them have these translucent roofs, which makes it look like daytime during daytime, like SoFi and Vegas, but they’re building these stadiums, you can’t just have 8-10 games a year played in there. You need to have that stadium operating 80 to a 100 to 120 days a year. So, you have to have the ability to do that by having a roof and some artificial surface.

“Football still needs to be played in conditions television fans love. The most memorable games are the snow games or the -21 degrees or whatever the temperature would be. Those are the most memorable of games, so I’m glad they did what they did here in Buffalo.”

Before my conversation with Michaels wrapped up, I asked him what he thought of Prime Video’s 2026 schedule.

“Very good,” Michaels said. “We got this one, which is a beauty. We got Seattle at Denver. Had Bo Nix not gotten hurt might have been the Super Bowl last year. We got New England at Chicago. We got Jacksonville at Baltimore which is pretty interesting game considering both teams are pretty damn good. One game I’d put the spotlight on is Dec. 3: Chiefs at Rams.

“The Rams, what they did in Australia notwithstanding, when the schedule came out, that game made me say, “WOW!” And we end the season on New Year’s Eve with Baltimore-Cincinnati, which could very well be for all the marbles. And we have the Cowboys, which will be only the second time we’ve been in Dallas for a Thursday night game. We haven’t had one game in Minnesota.

“Our schedule has gotten better year and after year, you can see that. Last year, we had what was probably the most exciting and dramatic regular season game of the 270, which was Rams at Seahawks with the crazy ending, going to overtime and Zach Charbonnet running the ball in on a 2-point conversion and Seattle winning it on 4th down at the end. And then in the playoffs, we had Green Bay-Chicago, with the Bears erasing an 18-point Packers lead, so that might have been the best of the postseason games.

“We’re on a pretty good roll with this thing.”

Other Stuff

• The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand broke the news Wednesday that Joe Buck has signed a new six-year deal to stay at ESPN and call “Monday Night Football.”

This wasn’t shock, so the most interesting nugget in Marchand’s story had nothing to do with football. From the article:

ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro is interested in getting the rights to the World Series in 2029, according to sources briefed on ESPN’s plans but not permitted to speak publicly. If ESPN were to swipe all or part of the World Series, Pitaro has told Buck he would like him to call it, the sources said. No provision in Buck’s new contract guarantees that happens.

Buck has repeatedly said he does not want to call baseball on a regular basis anymore, so it will be fascinating to see if ESPN could convince him to change his mind. It would also help MLB tremendously if Buck would return to baseball because it has been missing a voice of the sport since he left Fox five years ago.

• Speaking of Buck and “Monday Night Football,” ESPN got some great ratings news to kick of its Super Bowl season.

Monday’s Broncos-Chiefs game drew 23.2 million on ABC/ESPN. It was the network’s most-watched Week 1 game ever. Clearly, the Chiefs still have drawing power. Patrick Mahomes’s return from injury certainly drew interest in the game, as well.

Marchand also reported that the Week 1 ManningCast pulled in just 705,000 viewers, which is way down from what it has averaged in the past.

• In addition, with CBS and Fox both airing nationally televised 4:25 p.m. games in Week 1, nearly 40 million people were tuned into football.

Fox generated 20.3 million viewers for its window of Commanders-Eagles and Dolphins-Raiders while CBS pulled in 18.6 million viewers for Packers-Vikings and Cardinals-Chargers.

• I’ve been ranting and raving for a week about how dumb it is that the U.S. Open plays the men’s final at 2 p.m. on the first Sunday of the NFL sesaon. I guess I need to shut up because Sunday’s final between Alexander Zverev and Ben Shelton drew 3.2 million viewers, making the most-watched match to air on ESPN since they got the rights to the U.S Open in 2009.

• Cannot wait for this HBO documentary.

• This was a downright blistering line from ESPN’s Kevin Brown on the 2026 Mets.

• This is UNBELIEVABLE. How does this happen? How do the Patriots let another play wear Rob Gronkowski’s No. 87?

• I feel like college football’s oversight committee saying Western Michigan got screwed against Michigan in Week 1 just makes things worse, not better. The committee released a statement basically saying, “Sorry you should’ve won, but you lost. Have a good day.” What’s the point?

The Traina Thoughts Podcast

This week’s guest on “The Traina Thoughts Podcast” is SiriusXM Radio Hall of Famer, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo.

Russo goes off on the U.S. Open for various scheduling issues, reveals whether he'd root for the Dodgers or Yankees if they met in the World Series, explains why he thinks we'll get a Major League Baseball lockout and when he thinks the 2027 season could begin and breaks down his 2026 NFL team over/under bets.

In addition, Russo also gives us an update on his recent shoulder surgery and talks about not being able to do anything for six weeks, gives us background on his friend "Fat Rob, who he often mentions on SiriusXM and "First Take," and talks about what a schedule for him would look like if he decides to slow down.The podcast ends with a discussion about Mike Francesa recently calling me out for "being a Dog guy," and Russo telling everyone that he has to leave the show because he has an appointment to get a hot towel shave.

You can watch the podcast on YouTube.

You can also listen to it on Apple, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.

In Closing

I saw the news that Judge Judy is retiring from television after one hell of a run and a completely insane amount of money made. I’ve always found “Judge Judy” perfect comfort television, so I wanted mention her here and show you the most batshit crazy case in the history of the show featuring one of the worst people on earth. This was Judge Judy at her finest.

The NFL got a tad radical with its opening week schedule this season, choosing to begin the season on a Wednesday night.

In following its now longstanding tradition, the Super Bowl champions opened the season with the Seahawks hosting the Patriots in a rematch of last year’s championship game.

The NFL did not abandon Thursday night, however. The league shipped off the Niners and Rams to Australia to play that evening.

The ratings are in for those games and the numbers are a bit surprising.

Coming off a total dud of a Super Bowl, New England and Seattle gave us another lackluster game on opening night, with the Seahawks pulling off a 13-10 win. That game drew 25.1 million viewers for NBC.

It was the lowest season-opener since 2022 and down 12% from 2025. This was not surprising considering all networks benefitted from Nielsen changing the way it measured ratings last year, which caused ratings across the board to be up for almost every sport. It’s inevitable that there will be a dip in viewership across the board now that we are in Year 2 of Nielsen’s measurement system.

The Niners and Rams, in a much sexier matchup filled with many more big names airing on a better night for TV viewership, pulled in just 18.5 million viewers on Netflix.

Where did 7 million people go from Wednesday to Thursday? Why did 7 million people pass on watching a WAYYYYY better matchup?

I don’t want to hear that Netflix is a streaming service, so fewer people have access to the game because whenever I bring up that I don’t like sports on streaming service, I get totally bombarded with messages telling me that “EVERYONE HAS NETFLIX.”

There’s no reason for that Thursday night number to be so much lower than the Wednesday night number. Could it be that maybe sports fans are getting fed up with needing a billion services to watch sports? Could it be that maybe sports fans are finally getting fed up with streaming services raising their prices every five minutes? Because it makes no sense that Niners-Rams would be watched by 7 million fewer people than Patriots-Seahawks.

We’ll see how this plays out the rest of the season.

Netflix paid the NFL $500 million for a five-game schedule this season. The league got its money and cashed the check. But the NFL cannot be happy with that Niners-Rams viewership number.

Other Stuff

• CBS released its NFL broadcaster assignments for the next two weeks. Tony Romo was not on the schedule. Once again, J.J. Watt will be paired with Jim Nantz. They will call this week’s Steelers-Patriots game and next week’s Ravens-Cowboys game from Brazil.

• ESPN, in its Super Bowl sesason, gets an A+, for its new scorebug, which debuted last night. Clean, crisp, sharp.

• I said this on the Monday “Traina Thoughts Podcast,” but I want to give him a pop here. CBS’s Logan Ryan, working with Andrew Catalon, on Sunday’s Ravens-Colts game, was an excellent listen. Ryan has major potentianl.

• Elly De La Cruz hit a ball OUT OF The Great American Ballpark in Cincinatti last night. Reds play-by-play voice John Sadak could not have had a better call. Absolutely met the moment and enhanced the moment.

• That Carlos Alcaraz-Ben Shelton U.S. Open match from last Tuesday that ended at 3:33 a.m. ET? It drew 1.3 million viewers for ESPN. The match peaked from 11-11:15 pm with 1.8 million viewers.

It would’ve been interesting to see what the rating would’ve been for the five-set thriller had it be played at a reasonable hour.

• I love that a 2 o’clock in the morning, Patrick Mahomes, after his first game back from major knee surgery, was quote tweeting a guy who won a “Patrick Mahomes First TD” prop bet.

• If you like quirky stats, here’s one for you.

• I’d say 90% of bets/promises/guarantees are dumb, not creative and lame.

Ohio Tate, from Barstool, though, falls into the other 10% with what he came up with it for his Buckeyes.

He promised to spend 24 hours in a McDonald’s with each Big Mac eaten taking an hour off the total if Texas beat Ohio State last week.

I highly recommend checking out Tate’s Twitter feed to see the full results. I’ll give you his first post and last post from the saga. This is how it’s done. Outstanding content. He also mixed in a charitable component, so this was well done all around.

The Traina Thoughts Podcast

I dropped my first Monday edition of the podcast yesterday. The episode featured broadcasting observations from Week 1 of the NFL, other notes and a Mailbag. How did J.J. Watt mesh with Jim Nantz in their first game together? How did Ross Tucker do in CBS's No. 2 booth with Ian Eagle? Who was the breakout broadcaster from Week 1? What was the most embarrassing moment from all of the Week 1 action? Which college football play-by-play person is underrated? Which network has a major scorebug issue? All those questions get answered before Traina breaks down a major, major scheduling issue with the U.S. Open.

Topics covered in the Mailbag: How to fix the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony and the Field of Dreams game; the NFL possibly playing games on Wednesdays; pregame shows going on the road; YouTube TV's amazing ESPN deal; Vegas memories, the pain and cruelty of NFL survivor pools and much more.

And if you missed it last week, ESPN’s Joe Buck joined me for a fantastic interview.

All podcasts are on the Traina Thoughts YouTube channel in addition to Apple, Spotify and all the other podcast platforms out there, so make sure you are subscribe to YouTube if you like to watch the show.

Wednesday’s guest will be none other than Radio Hall of Famer, Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo.

In Closing

The Emmy Awards took place Monday night while you were watching football. Two videos I recommend from the show:

Michael J. Fox winning the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award.

Macaulay Culkin, Annie Murphy and Dan Levy paying tribute to Catherine O’Hara.

The NFL season is here! Last night was like getting the bread basket when you go to a restaurant (a very stale bread basket considering how awful that game was). Tonight, Niners-Rams is a solid appetizer, like really good baked clams or fried calamari. Sunday is the main course with eight 1 p.m. games, four 4:25 p.m. games and, of course, “Sunday Night Football,” featuring the Giants and Cowboys, on NBC. Then we get a decadent dessert on Monday with the Broncos and Chiefs on ESPN.

Here are the broadcast crews that will call all of the NFL action in 2026:

CBS

Jim Nantz-J.J. Watt
Ian Eagle-Ross Tucker
Kevin Harlan-Trent Green
Andrew Catalon-Logan Ryan
Spero Dedes-Adam Archuleta
Tom McCarthy-Robert Turbin

FOX

Kevin Burkhardt-Tom Brady
Joe Davis-Greg Olsen
Adam Amin-Drew Brees
Kenny Albert-Jonathan Vilma
Chris Myers-Mark Schlereth
Kevin Kugler-Daryl Johnston

NBC

Mike Tirico-Cris Collinsworth

ESPN/ABC

Joe Buck-Troy Aikman
Dave Pasch-Jason Kelce-Kurt Warner
Bob Wischusen-Louis Riddick

Prime Video

Al Michaels-Kirk Herbstreit

Netflix

Noah Eagle-Luke Kuechly

I have some thoughts about these broadcasters and broadcast crews and I will now make eight statements about them.

• Obviously, the biggest broadcasting story of the NFL season is Tony Romo

Will he return to CBS? If he returns, would he jump back right in the booth with Jim Nantz or would CBS pair him with Ian Eagle on its No. 2 crew? If CBS cuts ties with Romo, will he land somewhere else? Nobody knows the answers to these questions yet, but Romo will remain the No. 1 broadcaster storyline until there is clarity on his future.

• The chemistry between Jim Nantz and J.J. Watt is the biggest question of the NFL broadcast season

With Romo’s future at CBS up in the air and CBS having next year’s Super Bowl, the network needs Nantz and Watt to mesh. The pair did not call a preseason game together, but did do a practice game for CBS this summer. Watt, in his first season as a game analyst, had OUTSTANDING chemistry with Ian Eagle last year. But everyone has great chemistry with Eagle. In terms on providing analysis and entertainment, that is of zero concern regarding Watt. He connected with viewers last year because he came off like one of your friends who is a big football fan and not Joe Broadcaster who wanted to show you he knows more than you. His analysis was always easily digestible and he didn’t X’s and O’s you to death like a lot of color men. For his first season calling games, Watt was extremely impressive and hit the perfect balance between hardcore analysis and humor.

• The best booth in the game, and it’s not close, is Joe Buck and Troy Aikman

The duo is set to call their 25th season working together. They will also end the year by calling their seventh Super Bowl together for ESPN. When you listen to Buck and Aikman, it’s like listening to two old friends. Buck gives off big-game feel more than anyone in the business and Aikman is the only analyst who will call out refs and players. They’ve actually gone to another level since joining ESPN, which is amazing considering they had worked together for 20 years before that.

• The most underrated play-by-play caller is Fox’s Adam Amin

Amin doesn’t get a ton of pub, likely because he’s usually calling a mid-level game at best each week, but he’s always a very good listen and always calls a good game. He’s one of the best at balancing his calls and knowing when to get loud. Not every play deserves the announcer screaming at the top of lungs. When Amin takes his voice to the next level, it sounds natural and not forced.

• CBS’s Ross Tucker is going to become a fan favorite

The Romo situation vaulted Tucker into CBS’ No. 2 booth with Watt getting bumped up, a move nobody saw coming. But Tucker and Ian Eagle have called many games together on radio. This takes care of the chemistry issue I brought up regarding Nantz and Watt. Tucker also has personality and a sense of humor. There is a lot of potential for the Eagle-Tucker pairing.

• This is likely to be Greg Olsen’s last year at Fox

Olsen’s contract is up after this season. It doesn’t appear that Tom Brady is going anywhere. If Olsen can get a No. 1 job, you’d have to imagine that he leaves Fox.

There are some interesting scenarios out there for Olsen. If CBS doesn’t love the Nantz-Watt pairing, could they make a move for Olsen and then repair Watt with Eagle? Kirk Herbstreit’s contract with Amazon for “Thursday Night Football” is up after this season. Could the streamer make a move for Olsen to become their lead analyst?

For Olsen and for NFL viewers, he deserves to call a standalone game every week.

• The broadcaster I’m most intrigued by this season if Netflix’s Luke Kuechly

I’ve never seen or heard any of Kuechly’s TV work. I don’t really know anything about him other than he was a great linebacker for the Panthers. I’m looking forward to seeing what he brings to the table. Netflix has to believe him Kuechly a ton to 1) give him the job without any experience and 2) not put a third person in the booth to offset Kuechly’s inexperience.

• ESPN’s backup crews for NFL Network games is a mixed bag

There will be two news crews calling the seven international games on the NFL Network this season. Dave Pasch, Jason Kelce and Kurt Warner will handle four games while Bob Wischusen and Louis Riddick get the other three.

Wischusen and Riddick are a solid listen on the college football games they call together. There will be no issues with this crew and props to ESPN for giving us a two-person booth.

The flip side is Pasch, Kelce and Warner. Pasch is an EXCELLENT play-by-play guy. And Warner is a good analyst. The question is Kelce. For starters, he’s never called a game. Plus, ESPN seemed to use him more as the clown/goofball/wacky guy on its Monday night pregame show last season.

Did you guys know Kelce wears crazy costumes? It’s so hystercial! I slap my knee every time I see him in some get up.

I get that ESPN wants to maximize Kelce’s last night, but there is no reason at all that this booth couldn’t have been Pasch and Warner.

Other Stuff

• The NFL really has no shame. That was an awful, awful football game last night, yet the league still tried to gaslight everyone who watched it.

• You will absolutely want to click into this video and watch Kevin Harlan’s call of Drake Maye’s inexplicable interception at the end of last night’s Patriots-Seahawks season opener.

• For years, I’ve always posted every edition of Scott Van Pelt’s and Stanford Steve’s “Bad Beats” in my column because it is simply the best weekly segment on all of sports television. I’m going to keep that tradition alive here at Underscore Media, so here is the Week 1 edition.

• What an assignement for Knicks superstar, Jalen Brunson. It’s not just that he’s hosting “Saturday Night Live.” He’s hosting the season opener.

• ESPN’s tribute to Barry Melrose, who passed away Wednesday at the age of 70, was extremely well done.

The Traina Thoughts Podcast

Joe Buck was my guest this week and he was OUTSTANDING. Buck revealed that his daughter is due to give birth on Super Bowl Sunday and told me how he’s going to handle that situation.

In addtion, Buck talked about starting Year 5 at ESPN, working with Troy Aikman, what it was like to call the 2001 Diamondbacks-Yankees World Series weeks after 9/11.

He also shared a great story about Cris Collinsworth having to get a pair of glasses on the day he called a Super Bowl and Buck also reacted to a recent A.I. video of him calling the end of the Western Michigan-Michigan game.

You can watch the podcast below

You can also listen to the show below or on Apple Podcasts.

In Closing

With the news that Brunson will host SNL, I wanted to post what I think it the all-time best athlete sketch from the show. I know all of you think it’s the Peyton Manning-United Way bit. And i get that. It’s awesome.

However, I give the nod to this Tom Brady sketch simply because there is no way on earth this would get put on television today. I’m shocked it’s even on SNL’s official YouTube channel.

Welcome to the first TRAINA THOUGHTS newsletter here at Underscore Media. After writing a daily column for nearly 20 straight years, I’ll be here twice a week with opinions, critiques, news and analysis from the world of sports media. In addition, I’ll be podcasting three times a week for Underscore. (More on that below,)

As I did with my previous columns, Hot Clicks and Traina Thoughts, for “Sports Illustrated,” I want you guys to be involved in this. I want to make this an interactive experience, so if you have any questions you want answered in the newsletter, you can always email me at jimmy@underscoreny.com. You can also hit me up on Twitter and Instagram.

This period of time does not represent a new beginning for only me. Peter Schrager, who spent many years at the NFL Network and Fox before moving over to ESPN in 2025, is set to launch a new daily show for the World Wide Leader. “Big Day with Peter Schrager” launches this Thursday, Sept. 10 at 2 p.m. ET.

Schrager was nice enough to spend some time over the holiday weekend to give me the inside scoop on his new venture and answer several questions.

Traina: What can we expect from the new show?

Schrager: A good hang. Every single day. Smart and engaging sports talk with people you would want to hang with or wouldn’t mind being randomly seated next to on a plane. No smugness. No ego. And natural conversation - not scripted - is the hope. Our vision is we make you a little smarter about the sports you’re watching and you get a chance to laugh a bit, too. My favorite shows over the years - “Mike and the Mad Dog,” Howard Stern, Tim Heideker and his group, “The Breakfast Club,” “Pardon the Interruption,” Dan Patrick, Bill Simmons and his guys, the “Pardon My Take” guys, “Son of a Boy Dad,” Dave Portnoy and Mintzy and Rico Bosco, Pat McAfee and his crew - there’s always a bit of a show within the show, which can end up being as interesting as the show, itself. That’s when it’s the best: when you feel like the viewer is part of the chaos. We’ve been in the lab all summer working on things and I feel good about it. The hope all along has been really paying tribute to what we all fell in love with watching ESPN back in the day and maximizing the best of what the network has going on now. And a lot of the same spirit of the funny “asymmetric “ stuff we pushed at “Good Morning Football” we are going to try to pull off here, too.

Traina: Who will we see on the new show?

Schrager: There’s going to be a regular rotation of ESPN on-air people and a bunch of my former NFL Network friends, as well as several other guests who don’t necessarily work at ESPN or even in sports media full-time. The setup will be cool. More conversation than formal scripted segments. Think about how Bill Maher has panelists each week and they mix it up episode to episode. That’s the hope every day on “Big Day.”

Traina: What are you looking to accomplish with the new show?

Schrager: I’d like this show to be a part of someone’s daily routine. “Good Morning Football” had a loyal daily audience. I’d love if we could build that sort of deal and do that with ESPN’s reach and resources. Instead of doom scrolling each day on your phone at 2 p.m., watching how fabulous strangers’ lives are, you can put on “Big Day” and feel a part of the show. The goal is to make this a show people want to watch and don’t just treat as hotel lobby TV wallpaper.

Traina: What are you most looking forward to regarding the new show?

Schrager: Spontaneity. Tackling a topic and doing it in a different way than it’s being done elsewhere. And getting a text from Chris Berman or Craig Kilborn saying “Good job.”

Traina: Will you be doing anything else for ESPN and will we see you anywhere else or is your show it?

Schrager: YES. But this year is really focused on making the 2 p.m. hour the best it possibly can. The goal is that you have us on in the airport lounge and you ask the bartender to put the volume up on a segment they have on mute, and then you send that social clip to your group text of your fantasy football league friends because you thought it was pretty good. I’ll still be appearing on the other morning shows and “NFL Live,” and will be popping on McAfee’s show whenever he asks. I’ve got one sideline gig in the books and will still be doing my podcast I do with Omaha, too. But 2 p.m. is the focus.

Traina: If you could book any human being on earth for your first show, who would it be?

Schrager: Daejon Love?

No. You know this. Booking guests is a massive pain in the butt. The whole goal here is that people want to come and hang out with us on the set voluntarily and not just when they’re looking to promote the work they’re doing with a body spray or an AI shop. And being in NYC, I am hopeful they will. We used to have Paul Rudd come on GMFB to talk Chiefs; not to promote a movie. That’s the goal. Some “famous” people I’d love to do that with? Conan O’Brien. Adam Sandler. Kevin Garnett. Jon Turturro. Bobby Cannavale. Richard Kind. Ed Reed. Ethan Hawke. Chris Rock. Al Michaels.

Traina: Will we see a GMFB reunion with you, Kyke and Jason McCourty at any point?

Schrager: Yes. In all of our glory, too. Long overdue. We’ve got some good stuff planned.

The Good, Bad and Ugly of the Past Week

Good: I was a HUGE fan of ESPN’s new college football look with the removal of the bottom line scroll. I didn’t think there would be a big difference, as a viewer, but the presentation was so much smoother and sharper. When I flipped over to a game on FS1, which had the bottom line going, it looked amateur compared to the look with no bottom line.

Good: If you’re a tennis fan or you’re just into the U.S. Open, I highly recommend Andy Roddick’s podcast, “Served with Andy Roddick” for two reasons. One, Roddick’s insight is outstanding yet he talks like a regular dude. Two, the guy is doing his podcast at night from his car after the U.S. Open wraps up for the today, which makes for a fun watch.

Good: Aaron Judge will play baseball tonight for the first time since May 31. The YES Network did a nice job promoting his return with well done pump-up video.

Good: Speaking of creative videos, ESPN, along with Peyton and Eli Manning, have announced this season’s “ManningCast'“ schedule.

Good: Props to the Kansas City Royals, who came up with one of the most creative and enjoyable stadium stunts we’ve ever seen. The crowd at Monday’s game had 30 seconds to get a hot dog into a bun. What, exactly, does that mean, you may be asking? Take a look.

Bad: There were three college football games on Sunday. One started at 4 p.m. The other two started at 7:30 p.m. This is not only dumb, but nonsensical. There is no reason why ESPN, which had Louisville-Ole Miss, and NBC, which had Wisconsin-Notre Dame, couldn’t have staggered the starts to 7 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Bad: Despite the terrible job by college football on Sunday, Major League Baseball retained its crown as the most inept league in all of sports when it comes to scheduling. What can you even say about the league giving EIGHT teams off on Labor Day. There should’ve been games on NBC Monday at 1 p.m., 4 p.m., 7 p.m. and 10 p.m.

The Traina Thoughts Podcast

As I said at the top, I’ll be doing a podcast three days a week - Monday, Wednesday and Friday - for Underscore Media. The plan as of now is to have a Monday show that will cover all the latest sports media news. On Wednesdays, I’ll have an interview for you with someone from the sports media world. And on Fridays, I’ll be joined by my Underscore Media colleague, Sal Licata, for our regular segment that we were doing over at “Sports Illustrated” for the past several years.

Even though today, Tuesday, Sept. 8, is the official launch of Underscore Media, I couldn’t stay on the sidelines for too long after wrapping up my tenure at “Sports Illustrated” on Aug. 14, so I’ve done three podcasts already.

The first episode of “The Traina Thoughts Podcast” debuted on Aug. 26. I talked about leaving “Sports Illustrated” and joining Underscore Media and described the reaction and read some emails. Sal and I then discussed a variety of topics.

Last week, I droppped Episode No. 2 and it featured a guest that many people who follow me wouldn’t have expected: Alex Rodriguez. We discussed how the interview came about and why A-Rod joined me despite me ripping him over the years right at the top of the podcast.

Lastly, Sal and I did another episode last Friday. Topics discussed included: How my podcast with Rodriguez came about; NFL season win total best bets; a disastrous college football scheduling issue in Week 1; the unbelievable story about how Bill Belichick would mess with opposing kickers when he was the coach of the Patriots; the Bill Simmons backlash over his proxy betting; "The New York Times" jumping on my bandwagon regarding what's happened to Dunkin' Donuts; Howard Stern going to one day a week and SiriusXM dropping the Howard 101 channel and much more.

Coming tomorrow, I’ll have a brand new podcast with the voice of “Monday Night Football” on ESPN, Joe Buck.

Here are all the places you can subscribe to the audio version of the TRAINA THOUGHTS PODCAST:

Apple

Spotify

Amazon Music

YouTube Music

Pocket Casts

Podcast Republic

Podbean

What’s In My Algorithm

• Give it up to this NFL fan who managed to pay tribute to the start of the football season at his wedding.

@shilpatheviolist_played this yesterday and had the best reactions 😂 go jags btw #nfl #footballtiktok #musician #colorado @shawsriverranch

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• This “Sunday Night Football” opening, performed by Pink, is approximately 8 million times better than the awful Carrie Underwood song/opening that’s been used for so many years.

A Random Closing Thought

I don’t want to go to this. I NEED to go to this. However, I’m terrified to see how much tickets are going to cost, especially since he’s only doing one show in NYC.

After watching the media landscape evolve over the last 25 years, I'm building the show I've always wanted — covering the sports media world the way it deserves to be covere, both in New York and across the country. I'm most excited about doing it with a community of fans who care about this stuff as much as I do. If you've ever wondered who's really running things behind the mic, pull up a chair.

- Jimmy