Cris Collinsworth doesn’t think the slide is coming back for Super Bowl LX.
The NBC analyst told Vincent Augello of The People’s Morning Show on 105.7 The X at Radio Row this week that his signature entrance — the one where he’d lean almost horizontally out of frame before popping back up — probably won’t make an appearance Sunday night.
“Take the under on that,” Collinsworth quipped.
The slide is always tied to his partnership with Al Michaels, and that era of Sunday Night Football is over.
Michaels had it written into his contract that he’d be the only person on camera for the first minute of broadcast, the former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver revealed during a 2024 ManningCast appearance.
The thing is, NBC producers still wanted Collinsworth positioned on his mark between two pieces of tape. So when they told him to get out of the shot while Michaels opened the show, Collinsworth faced an impossible instruction of not only being on his mark, but also leaving the frame. His solution was to lean so far to the side that he was practically lying on the desk, then slide back into frame when Michaels introduced him.
“I’d look like that clown that you punch, and it comes up,” Collinsworth told Augello.
The slide became one of those weird broadcast traditions that outlived its practical purpose. It was soft retired when Michaels left for Amazon’s Thursday Night Football, ending a partnership that spanned over a decade. For years, it seemed like a relic of a different era of Sunday Night Football.
Then, Collinsworth brought it back for his 500th career broadcast in November. Tirico introduced it perfectly before the Buccaneers-Rams game, noting the milestone and suggesting Collinsworth “slide in for old times’ sake.” Collinsworth obliged, though he admitted afterward it was harder than he remembered.
That was a career milestone, though, not a permanent return. Tirico doesn’t have Michaels’ contractual solo opening. The production setup that created the slide no longer exists. And without that specific dynamic between Michaels and Collinsworth — the contradiction that forced the move in the first place — bringing it back would just be for nostalgic purposes.
Still, if NBC wanted to give the people what they want, Sunday night would be the moment. But even for the Super Bowl, it sounds like it’s staying retired
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.