NFL fans who weren’t pleased with Jim Nantz and Tony Romo’s broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII just know how close you were to hearing Tiki Barber, Ross Tucker, and Brent Stover call the game for CBS.
While reacting to the Kansas City Chiefs raising their third Lombardi Trophy in five years after a 25-22 overtime win against the San Francisco 49ers, Tiki Barber casually noted he watched the game with Tucker and Stover from the CBS Broadcast Center in New York.
“Me and Ross Tucker were there with Brent Stover because we were the backup team in case something, God forbid, went wrong with the trucks out in Las Vegas,” Barber said during his WFAN radio show Monday afternoon. “What ultimately happened is we just got to sit and talk football and watch a big game on a massive screen with about 20 or so other CBS employees, so we thank all those people for coming and hanging out.”
Barber’s WFAN co-host Evan Roberts aptly noted that meant the former New York Giants running back was CBS’s “designated survivor.” In the event that there was some sort of technical issue at the site of Super Bowl LVIII in Vegas, CBS had Barber, Tucker and Stover ready to go from a previously undisclosed secure location.
“CBS has experience with this because we all remember the New Orleans Super Bowl where they lost power,” Barber said, referencing Super Bowl XLVII in 2013. “I was ready. I was suited up. I was ready to go, had my boards, I prepared like I had to call the game.”
A power outage paused Super Bowl XLVII between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers for 35 minutes, leaving CBS without its announcers Jim Nantz and Phil Simms for the bulk of that delay. Sideline reporters Steve Tasker and Solomon Wilcots were forced to talk through the delay until CBS could switch to The NFL Today studio crew, who were also in New Orleans for the game.
But this year, if Nantz, Romo, and CBS’s studio team were unavailable to broadcast any part of the Super Bowl, the network had Barber, Tucker, and Stover ready to go from New York. The backup crew ultimately never had to jump on the mic for CBS during Super Bowl LVIII, leaving football fans subjected to Tony Romo explaining the overtime rules. Although it might not have been any smoother with Barber on the call, with the WFAN host admitting he would have needed a crash course on the rules.
[WFAN]
