The NFL in-game update, as a part of the soundtrack to a Sunday afternoon, is so routine that a viewer might miss it entirely.
These highlights are the time for a quick peek at your phone, a nibble on a chicken wing, or a look down at the bottom line to check the scores. Most of the plays that Fox or CBS show when they break in for updates happened minutes prior, rendering them nearly irrelevant by the time they are shown in an update package. Many fans will have already seen them online or from a notification on their fantasy football app of choice. Football fiends don’t even see these highlights because they are watching at a sports bar or on NFL RedZone.
That is to say, most of the time the in-game update does not matter. The networks could axe them some week this fall and the majority of America might not even notice.
This set of facts may provide a solid explanation for why, this season, CBS hired radio man Adam Schein for the job.
An in-game update from Schein sounds like the last time viewers needed these highlights during a game broadcast. Schein’s approach sounds like getting your news from the speakers of the radio cabinet in the living room. It sounds like Chris Berman. It sounds like football.
A less sophisticated ear might be bothered by Schein breaking in mid-game. Some might believe Schein’s linguistic freewheeling is a blemish on CBS’ coverage of the NFL. They are wrong.
On Sunday during the fourth quarter of a big Chiefs-Colts game, Schein came in to show viewers a touchdown by the Giants in which quarterback Jameis Winston caught a long bomb from the tight end. “Trickeration,” Schein called it.
One of the more polarizing hires in NFL media this season: Adam Schein at CBS
Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/ftKkpz1OPA
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 23, 2025
How better to describe the give-and-go by the desperate New York squad?
A game update anchor, especially one like Schein who does not work in any other role for their network, has the tiniest of increments in which to work. Schein has to make a highlight pop in 15-20 seconds, repeatedly across multiple games, all afternoon long. Otherwise the future wins and the in-game update goes the way of the radio cabinet or the dinosaurs.
If that means saying “trickeration” and laying the New York radio voice on as thick as mustard on a hot dog at the tailgate, then add “trickeration” to the dictionary.
Sports broadcasts often feel indistinguishable. Announcers give each game a different flavor, but the look and feel of each network’s coverage is often very similar. Producers try to innovate with different score bugs, unique camera angles, or experiments like Peacock’s “On the Bench” NBA broadcasts.
Schein makes an NFL on CBS game feel distinct.
Some would say that the worst thing a game broadcaster can do is distract from the live action. This is the argument against exuberant announcers like Gus Johnson at Fox, the ManningCast and its ilk, or the Booger Mobile.
Of course Schein exists in such small pockets that only a hater would say he is distracting from any particular NFL game on CBS. Even acknowledging that he brings attention to himself with his delivery and vocabulary, I hear Schein’s cut-ins as more of a connective tissue across CBS than a distraction.
Schein’s voice is a Sunday treat for our ears, fast becoming an indelible staple of each NFL weekend.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.