The Thanksgiving holiday is arguably the most-watched day of sports during the calendar year outside of the Super Bowl. But one of the top broadcasters in the sport will be missing as Cris Collinsworth will be replaced in the NBC broadcast booth by Jason Garrett.
It’s not uncommon for top NFL broadcasters to take a game off in and around the Thanksgiving holiday. With the massive Thanksgiving audiences, the Thursday games are called by each network’s top broadcast team. For the Lions-Packers game on Fox, you’ll hear Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady. On the Chiefs-Cowboys game, it will be Jim Nantz and Tony Romo.
NBC added the primetime Thanksgiving game in 2012 to their Sunday Night Football schedule. However, according to our announcing schedule archives, Collinsworth has taken several Thanksgiving games off over the years. However, he did work the game in 2023 for a Seahawks-49ers contest. Given the fact he’s called 500 games over the course of his announcing career, he’s certainly entitled to take some time off to spend with the fam on a holiday. And that year, Garrett worked the Sunday Night Football game following Thanksgiving.
When Collinsworth has been absent, other NBC analysts have joined the broadcast booth from Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison to Drew Brees to more recently, Jason Garrett.
And for the Bengals-Ravens game on Thanksgiving night, it will be once again Garrett that joins Mike Tirico as the lead analyst.
We’ve also seen CBS and Fox announcers take a game off throughout the years during this busy stretch, although that has happened either the Sunday before or after so that the top broadcast crew doesn’t have to call three games in eight days.
That will be the case with Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady, who will have the Sunday after Thanksgiving off with Fox televising a singleheader on Sunday in Week 13.
However, Jim Nantz and Tony Romo will be this year’s ironman performers amongst NFL broadcasters as they will work Thanksgiving and both surrounding Sundays. After calling Chiefs-Colts and Chiefs-Cowboys, they will also work Bills-Steelers in the 4:25 p.m. ET window this coming Sunday in the nationally televised late afternoon window.
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