Posted Jan. 08, 2010 @ 4:08 p.m.
By Barry Jackson
Oddly, this season's first playoff game will be announced by three men who haven't been in an NFL broadcast booth all season. NBC is pairing ex-ESPN announcer Joe Theismann with his former Commanders coach, Joe Gibbs, as analysts on the opening wild-card game Jan. 9. As usual, Tom Hammond will do play-by-play.
NBC has only one announcer team — Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth — and that duo will call the prime-time game. In past years, Collinsworth worked the opener with Hammond, with Michaels and John Madden working the nightcap. But Madden's retirement forced NBC to look for replacements.
Theismann, dropped from "Monday Night Football" after 2006, worked as an analyst on one of NFL Network's studio shows this season. Gibbs previously worked in NBC's studio (1994-97).
"He'll probably argue with me the whole night," Gibbs cracked. "I'm going to make him promise to let me get in a word edgewise."