One of the most common criticisms of NFL athletes when they transition to broadcasting is that they are not critical enough.
That hesitancy has plagued Tom Brady in his first year at Fox, while Monday Night Football viewers are treated to plenty of constructive negativity from top ESPN analyst Troy Aikman.
It took no time for Matt Ryan to find that sweet spot at CBS, where he tore apart the disastrous final series for the Chicago Bears on Thanksgiving Day.
With a timeout remaining and more than 30 seconds on the clock after a sack, the Bears managed to cobble together just one more play and lose the game. The incredible lowlight would effectively cost Bears coach Matt Eberflus his job, but Ryan was on top of it on the CBS postgame show.
“This is unacceptable from the head coach position,” Matt Ryan said in his first Thanksgiving on television, with tens of millions watching between bites of turkey. “That’s a massive, massive fail by Matt Eberflus.”
“This is unacceptable from the head coach position. Your responsibility is to not panic in critical situations. To put your team in the best opportunity to win games. That’s a massive, massive fail by Matt Eberflus” – CBS’ Matt Ryan🔥 pic.twitter.com/z0TZ49IbkE
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 28, 2024
For anyone watching at home (particularly anyone in the Chicagoland area), the response to Ryan’s rant was likely DUH. It was an unacceptable mismanagement of a potential game-saving drive by a veteran head coach. The gaffe cost the Bears a chance to win the game, as well as any hopes of a playoff bid.
Yet across NFL studio shows and broadcast booths, precious few people are willing to bring the heat in those moments.
The fact that Ryan went there — and already feels comfortable doing so as a TV rookie — bodes well for his future as a broadcaster. It’s enough to wonder whether CBS should already be thinking bigger for Ryan, who effectively replaced longtime CBS analyst Phil Simms this season on The NFL Today.
History says Matt Ryan should be a great broadcaster. A good to great quarterback with a long career and name recognition? That’s a sports media executive’s dream. Nearly every top NFL booth has one. From Tony Romo to Troy Aikman to Tom Brady in the NFL and Joel Klatt or Kirk Herbstreit calling college games, these guys work. And while the bidding wars for Peyton Manning and Philip Rivers fizzled out and Drew Brees is in his comeback era, CBS may have something in Ryan.
This history, coupled with Ryan’s viral moment on Thanksgiving, led The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand to speculate on whether Ryan could be in for a promotion as soon as next season. The sports media insider suggested placing Ryan as the third man in the No. 2 booth at CBS alongside Ian Eagle and Charles Davis. Most analysts strive for that color commentary gig (and the paycheck that comes with it) above all, so it would be hard to imagine Ryan turning such an offer down. And there is little downside for CBS, outside of potentially bugging the 60-year-old Davis, whom the network stole from Fox in 2020.
At the very least, CBS needs to see exactly what it has in Ryan. While it was likely counting on Ryan to be a mainstay on The NFL Today after reshuffling that show for the first time in years, there’s a reason game analysts make more. They have more value to the network. Bringing the 39-year-old Ryan into the fold now could cement the No. 2 booth at CBS for years to come.
Outside of its walls, CBS also likely has to keep Ryan happy to fend off rival networks. With Netflix joining the fray starting on Christmas, nearly every major broadcasting platform airs NFL games these days. While Aikman, Romo, and Cris Collinsworth are locked in long-term, that leaves top jobs at Fox, Prime Video, and Netflix up in the air. Looking at No. 2 teams, Ryan could at least get on the phone with ESPN and NBC about replacing their current analysts.
And would anyone bet that Eagle is still calling the NFL for CBS in five years? Netflix just hired him for its Christmas slate, and Amazon is openly leaking its intentions to have Eagle replace Al Michaels on Thursday Night Football now that it has him for its NBA package.
Amid a broader youth movement at the top of CBS’ NFL coverage, going with Ryan makes sense. Of course, the 2017 NFL MVP has more to prove as well. The Thanksgiving moment may just be a flash in the pan, the type of embarrassment that even the most mediocre talking head could pinpoint. Earlier this season as a guest on the ManningCast, Ryan got ahead of himself spelling out a different late-game situation between Philadelphia and his Falcons. Perhaps he calls a game down the stretch of this season and struggles, making the conversation moot.
But when you look at Brady — or even ESPN’s recent turnover on the NBA side — the type of viral moment Ryan just created is rare. CBS brought him in for a reason, and that reason probably looked a lot like that moment. If they seize on it, the upside could be great.
