Tony Romo ready for his first turn on Super Bowl stage
“You’re trying to do the best you can and make it fun, and hopefully people at home enjoy it."
Quarterbacks are the top-billed stars in the NFL, never more so than on Super Bowl Sunday.
Twenty-nine of the 53 Super Bowl MVPs (Cowboys defensive linemen Harvey Martin and Randy White were co-winners in Super Bowl XII) played the position, including seven of the last nine. Should the Patriots prevail on Sunday, it’s a logical bet that Tom Brady will collect a fifth MVP to go with a sixth Lombardi Trophy. Should the Rams prevail, third-year passer Jared Goff would be a favorite for the prize, though one-man wrecking crew Aaron Donald has the talent to become the fourth defensive lineman to win the MVP.
But Brady and Goff aren’t the only quarterbacks who will be in the spotlight Sunday. Tony Romo never reached a Super Bowl during his 13-year career with the Dallas Cowboys, but the acclaimed (if fledgling) color analyst will be calling his first Super Bowl alongside play-by-play voice Jim Nantz in just his second season in the booth.
Romo’s authentic enthusiasm, and knack for identifying what an offense intends to do right before it inevitably does it, has made him an instant broadcasting star. Perhaps the most popular in an NFL booth since John Madden’s ’80s heyday.
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CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus, who make the bold decision to hire the novice Romo to replace longtime analyst Phil Simms in the No. 1 booth, knows what he has, though he is quick to praise the entire broadcast team, including the dependable Nantz, calling his fifth Super Bowl, and sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson.
“We had high expectations when we put this broadcast team together, and they have exceeded them,’’ said McManus. “What’s exciting is that they keep getting better each week.’’
But make no mistake: Romo is the star. During a media event earlier this week to promote CBS’s Super Bowl coverage plans, McManus stood among approximately 20 network personalities on stage to answer questions. Virtually every question was aimed at Romo.
It’s hard to imagine Romo could be better Sunday than he was during the Patriots-Chiefs AFC Championship game, when his commentary was in sync time and again with Brady’s decision-making. But the Super Bowl is a different kind of beast.
It’s more than a sporting event. It’s a cultural event. More than 100 million people will watch the broadcast. There’s a lot of pressure on Romo to justify the praise.
“I’m anxious to see just the feelings and everything going into it,’’ Romo said. “I’ve never broadcasted one, but I know how I felt going into the AFC championship, and it’s such a big deal that I think it’ll be ramped up a little bit. But the excitement level is real.’’
He said it would be foolish for him to deviate from his approach, though he also suggested during the availability that the jokes about his prescience were turning toward the tiresome.
“I’ll keep playing my novelty act up here,” he deadpanned after being asked to predict the score on Sunday. Then he obliged anyway: 28-24, though he did not give away his winner.
“You’re trying to do the best you can and make it fun, and hopefully people at home enjoy it,’’ Romo said. “More than anything, if you learn something, I always felt like that was more fun to watch if you could add humor or make it enjoyable. It’s hard to sit down and watch anything for three hours now. People, if they’re not being entertained or learning, it’s hard to keep their attention so I just want to make people enjoy it.’’
McManus said that is the aim of the broadcast as a whole, which will be the 20th CBS has carried, most of any network. The Nantz-Romo-Wolfson crew will be particularly familiar to Patriots fans. CBS has added a second sideline reporter to join Wolfson, Evan Washburn, who usually works with CBS’s No. 2 team of Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts. Rules analyst Gene Steratore will be in the booth as the rules analyst — he was especially useful during the Patriots-Chiefs matchup — while Jay Feely will be stationed on the sideline as a kicking analyst. Jim Rikhoff, with CBS Sports since 1985, gets his first lead producer assignment on a Super Bowl, while Mike Arnold will direct.
CBS’s seven-hour pregame coverage begins with That Other Pregame Show at 11:30 a.m., hosted by Adam Schein and including analysts Amy Trask, London Fletcher, and Brandon Tierney. At noon, NFL Films’s annual and always enjoyable The Road To the Super Bowl — a look back at the highlights of the 2018 season — will air.
Then Romo gets his first star turn with Tony Goes To the Super Bowl at 1 p.m., which features him making his way to Atlanta and conducting several interviews along the way, including one with Brady.
The official pregame show begins at 2 p.m. The Super Bowl Today, hosted by James Brown and featuring analysts Nate Burleson (a rising star in his own right), Bill Cowher, Boomer Esiason, and Simms. Among the more interesting features in that 4½-hour extravaganza is a reminiscence of Joe Namath’s famous guarantee before Super Bowl III 50 years ago. You know, just in case you never thought there was anything for a Jets fan to enjoy during a Super Bowl.
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