After Tony Romo wondered if Jim Nantz was jinxing Stephen Gostkowski, Romo’s mic went out for multiple plays

CBS analyst Tony Romo had an interesting stretch in the first quarter of Sunday’s Super Bowl. Romo first asked if play-by-play broadcaster Jim Nantz was jinxing a field goal attempt from New England Patriots’ kicker Stephen Gostkowski by pointing out that no kicker had missed a field goal or point-after attempt in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium all season. Gostkowski then went on to miss, and CBS went to commercial; when they came back, Romo was silent for a couple of plays before returning to the broadcast and explaining that his microphone had cut out.

Here’s the jinx discussion and the Gostkowski mix:

After the broadcast returned from commercial, the first play saw Nantz throw to sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson for an update on the Los Angeles Rams’ plans for Todd Gurley:

It’s unclear if Romo’s mic wasn’t working here and this was cover, or if his mic was working and they just decided to get the Gurley report in. In either case, the play after this saw just silence after Nantz’s call of the play.

The next play also saw silence afterwards, before Nantz cut to a promo for the halftime show:

After the next play, Romo came back and explained what had been going on:

“Well, my mic works again, so I can talk, this works out perfect! I was saying such good stuff on that play earlier, too, it was fantastic.”

Maybe Romo’s equipment reacted negatively to him accusing Nantz of a jinx. Or maybe this was just due to random fluctuations in the space-time continuum. Either way, it made for something pretty unusual.

[Clippit]