CBS moving Charles Davis off No. 2 NFL broadcast role — replaced by J.J. Watt — is a raw deal

Boston Globe

05-04-2025

If you missed it — or just didn't think twice when you heard it in between perusing mock drafts — CBS made a major change in its No. 2 broadcast booth.
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J.J. Watt
, who was an analyst on 'The NFL Today' studio program last season, his second with the network, was moved to a game analyst role, where he will join play-by-play voice
Ian Eagle
in that No. 2 booth.
Watt replaces
Charles Davis
, who in 2026 will replace the retiring
Gary Danielson
on the network's top college football broadcast team, alongside play-by-play voice
Brad Nessler
. But Davis is in a weird kind of limbo right now — he will be a game analyst on one of CBS's NFL broadcast teams in 2025, but it is undetermined which one.
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My first thought upon learning of CBS's shuffling is that Davis is getting a raw deal. Eagle and Davis, with
Evan Washburn
on the sideline, have called numerous Patriots games since former CBS sports boss
Sean McManus
brought Davis over from Fox and assembled that broadcast team in 2020, and they always provided an informative and enjoyable broadcast. Personally, I found them more consistently enjoyable in recent years than CBS's No. 1 team of
Jim Nantz
,
Tony Romo
, and reporter
Tracy Wolfson
, especially during those times when Romo seemed to treat the broadcast like a nonsensical conversation with himself, a habit he repaired last season while sounding more prepared.
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I suspect Watt, who gives off an easygoing vibe, will eventually be very good — though suggestions that he may threaten Romo's status as the No. 1 analyst seem like a stretch. Eagle, whether he's calling the NFL, NBA, or college basketball, always elevates whomever he is with. And it's clear CBS liked what it heard when Eagle, Watt, and
Nate Burleson
teamed up in the booth for Netflix's Christmas Day Chiefs-Steelers game.
But it will take time to build the chemistry that Eagle had with Davis, who deserved better in all of this. If CBS still had Southeastern Conference broadcast rights, the move to its college football broadcasts in '26 could be spun as a promotion, or at least a lateral move from one excellent gig to another. But working Big Ten games just does not have the same prestige.
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Davis was — or is, at least for another year — the rare NFL game analyst who wasn't a former NFL player. (He starred as a cornerback at Tennessee, but was cut by the Cowboys in training camp in 1987 and never played in the league.) That suggested to me he had to work harder than most to get the opportunities that eventually came his way, first with his 14 years at Fox Sports before McManus advocated for him at CBS.
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That hard work always was evident when Davis was in the booth, and I'm sure it still will be. But all these months before the new season begins, it's a bummer to realize that one of the best, if not the best, NFL broadcast booth is no more.—.
YouTube venture shows promise
Joon Lee
, who did excellent work for ESPN as a baseball writer before being laid off in July 2023, has
'Sports Sunday' remains on hiatus
'Sports Sunday' on NBC Sports Boston and NBC 10 was put on hiatus in late January, with plans, per a company spokesperson at the time, to continually evaluate the show's status through 2025. I thought that might mean 'Sports Sunday' would be revived when the Celtics, whose games air on NBC Sports Boston, of course, began their playoff quest to repeat as NBA champions. But I was told this week that a return during the NBA postseason is not in the cards.
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Chad Finn can be reached at