College football schedule NFL Week #8 Link:

NFL: CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN set for Week # 8; Buck works World Series other than Thursday Night Football

• The Fox sideliners: Erin Andrews gets double duty. She’s in Denver for Chiefs on Thursday and Chicago on Sunday for Saints-Bears. Lindsay Czarniak is New Jersey bound for Arizona-Giants, Pam Oliver in Atlanta for Rams-Falcons and KU alum Laura Okmin in DC where the subject of sports conversation for the first time ever won’t focus on the Skins. Congrats to the Nats. The last DC team that played in a Series was in 1933, the old Washington Senators (now the Minnesota Twins). Remember the line about Washington, “First in war, first in peace, last in the American League.” It was FDR’s first year in office, TV was a dream and pioneers Graham McNamee on NBC and Ted Husing on CBS did the World Series on radio for eager baseball fans across our great land. 

• Carolina, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Tampa have byes this weekend

• Fox has doubleheader and CBS runs single game

• Lots of talent shuffling at Fox this weekend because Joe Buck and Kevin Burkhardt have baseball dates. A scorecard is required this weekend to stay atop the wholesale changes. Sam Rosen takes Kevin Burkhardt’s spot and joins Charles Davis. Kenny Albert stays close to home on Arizona at Giants. He gets Greg Olsen as his boothmate. His usual partner Ronde Barber will be with Dick Stockton and Mark Schlereth in a Seattle trio. Ronde and brother Tiki have both worked simultaneously with Albert in the past. Stockton is a pro developing analysts

• Buck won’t miss Thursday’s Fox/NFL Network simulcast but has no football work Sunday. So Joe will join Troy Aikman in Denver tomorrow for Broncos-Chiefs rivalry. Then Troy goes to Chicago for the Sunday affair between the Bears and Saints. Thom Brennaman will have the play-by-play microphone at Soldiers Field. Buck will be on call for a possible game #7 in the ALCS

• CBS’ sideliners this weekend: Reliable Tracy Wolfson is in Green Bay, Evan Washburn in Nashville, Melanie Collins in Indy and Jay Feely gets the assignment in Cincinnati, one of America’s great downtowns. Nice to see the very capable Wolfson expand beyond the sidelines. Along with Lisa Leslie and Summer Sanders, she hosts We Need to Talk on CBS Sports Network

• Dick Stockton is in Seattle for the Ravens visit. He’ll be working 16 of the 17 weeks this season for Fox. He’s had some tough travel assignments already, London one Sunday and Los Angeles the next. Stockton is number two all-time in number of network play-by-play assignments, He’s covered the NFL for decades

• Al Michaels, the numerical leader in all-time NFL network play-by-play broadcasts has presided over 668 games. Pat Summerall did  535 as a play-by-player. Michaels continues strong in his 34th straight year as the NFL’s Voice of Primetime television

• You’ll also note that the Baltimore-Seattle game was assigned to Fox this weekend. It would generally go to the AFC network, CBS

• No Spero Dedes this week. Not good. He’ll be missed

Below the schedule find Jake Baskin’s profile of Thom Brennaman

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Kansas City Chiefs at Denver Broncos (Thu) 8:20p FOX/NFLN/Amazon*

Joe Buck, Troy Aikman on Fox and NFL Network

Hannah Storm, Andrea Kremer on Amazon Prime

100% of the country – NFL Network reaches 63 million homes; Amazon Prime has almost 100 million subscribers

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Los Angeles Rams at Atlanta Falcons  1:00p FOX

Sam Rosen, Charles Davis 

Nice representation, Southern California plus pieces of seven southeastern states

16% Coverage

Miami Dolphins at Buffalo Bills  1:00p CBS

Andrew Catalon, James Lefton

Not many markets, a handful at best, to see the winless Dolphins and the Bills, 3 South Florida markets, upstate NY and Erie, Pa; These two teams were once great AFC rivals

5% Coverage – Narrowest coverage of the day’s regional telecasts

Jacksonville Jaguars at Cincinnati Bengals 1:00p CBS

Kevin Harlan, Rich Gannon 

Geographic area extending around the two cities of participating teams, about a dozen markets

7% Coverage

Minnesota Vikings at Detroit Lions 1:00p FOX

Brandon Gaudin, Chris Spielman

A large swath of geography for these two fellows. They’ll get most markets from Buffalo to Las Vegas, plus some representation in the south

36% Coverage

Oakland Raiders at Green Bay Packers  1:00p CBS

Jim Nantz, Tony Romo

Think a chunk of the country with the exception of Southern California, parts of the Midwest and Texas

49% Coverage

Houston Texans at Indianapolis Colts 1:00p CBS

Greg Gumbel, Trent Green

These two should bring their Bum Phillips cowboy hats to Indy. They’ll be on through Texas, Indiana and eastern Illinois

12% Coverage

Arizona Cardinals at New York Giants 1:00p FOX

Kenny Albert, Greg Olsen

A New York, New England, Texas and Southwest showing

32% Coverage

San Francisco 49ers at Washington Redskins  1:00p FOX

Chris Myers, Daryl Johnston

Northern half of California and Mid-Atlantic watch the undefeated Niners and hapless Skins

14% Coverage

Los Angeles Chargers at Tennessee Titans  4:05p CBS

Ian Eagle, Dan Fouts

The logical cast of markets, Southern California, Arizona and around Tennessee. Outliers include New York, Detroit, Washington and Minneapolis

27% Coverage

New Orleans Saints at Chicago Bears 4:25p FOX

Thom Brennaman, Troy Aikman

This game gets the preponderance of the country’s geography but won’t be seen on the West Coast, in the Mid-Atlantic, parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio and New England. So think biggies like New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Philadelphia and all of Texas

64% Coverage – Largest coverage of the day’s regional telecasts

Baltimore Ravens at Seattle Seahawks  4:25p FOX

Dick Stockton, Ronde Barber, Mark Schlereth

The trio will dominate the coast from Seattle down to Phoenix. They’ll also get Boston and New England, the Mid-Atlantic like DC, through markets just to the west such as Cleveland and Pittsburgh

34% Coverage

Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys 8:20p NBC

Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworh

100% of this free country

Monday, October 21, 2019

New England Patriots at New York Jets (Mon) 8:15p ESPN

Joe Tessitore, Booger McFarland

100% of the U. S., ESPN is in some 84 million homes

Thom Brennaman has the call of Sunday’s late afternoon matchup between the Saints and Bears. With Joe Buck on baseball duty, Brennaman, 56, slides over to the #1 team alongside Buck’s usual partner, Troy Aikman.

Thom, the son of recently-retired Cincinnati Reds radio announcer Marty Brennaman, has had a long career in play-by-play, including a 25-year stint at the national level. Brennaman first made his name in baseball, joining the Reds as their TV announcer at the age of 23. He spent six seasons with the Chicago Cubs, then nine more as the inaugural TV voice of the Arizona Diamondbacks before returning to Cincinnati in his original role in 2007, a position he still holds.

Brennaman was one of the first play-by-play hires by Fox Sports when it launched in 1994. He served as the network’s #2 baseball voice for fourteen seasons and was also its lead college football voice for ten years. He called three BCS National Championship Games.

Thom also did NFL games for Fox during the network’s first four years owning the package. He rejoined the rotation for the 2009 season and has been on the #4 team since 2014, working primarily the last three seasons with Chris Spielman.