Kenny Albert on calling all 30 NFL on Fox seasons and initial youth movement: ‘We were all so fortunate.’

Albert said the camera and audio shifts Fox deployed from the start were notable as well.

“Fox would try different things with cameras, audio. Fox, I think, raised the bar with microphones all over the field. That’s another area where when I think back to those early days, they tried a lot of things that other networks had not at that point.”

As per game preparation, Albert said the film focus has changed a lot over the years. Part of that is because film is much easier to access early in the week now.

“Technology has come a long way since then, even in the way we prepare. They sent us articles on a fax machine. The internet was really in its early stages. And even to be able to watch the team’s prior games, they would send VHS tapes. They’d make copies in LA on a Monday, send them out on a Tuesday, we wouldn’t get them until Wednesday. Nowadays, we can tape games, watch games on our phone or our iPad. So the preparation aspect of it has come so far as well.”

And he said that’s altered how those meetings go, but the NFL on Fox team still has valuable pre-game meetings.

“That’s changed a little bit now that the film’s available and now that it’s out there during the week. Most of us do a lot of that at home by ourselves and that’s more analyst-driven, there’s probably not as much time spent together watching film as a team. But we still try to have those meetings. It changed a little bit during COVID when we did those via Zoom, but now our crew is pretty much back to doing almost everything in person.”

Albert said that tradition of pre-game meetings helped him and the other young announcers early on, as did the summer seminars that let them connect with Madden and Summerall.

“That was sort of instilled early on. I remember for some of those preseason rehearsal games, we’d go to the same site where Pat and John were calling the game that weekend, and sit in there with them and watch and learn. And in the early years, we also had these breakout meetings in the summer at the Fox seminar, and not only would we have meetings amongst our specific crews, we’d also break up into play-by-play meetings, color analyst meetings. So Joe and Tom and Kevin and myself, we’d just be in a room with Pat and Dick for a half hour and just listen to some of the greatest of all time tell their stories.”

For himself, Albert said he came into the NFL on Fox without much recent football experience.

“I had done some Division III college football four or five years earlier. I was working professionally in Washington [D.C.] at the time, doing mostly hockey and filling in on some basketball and baseball. So I didn’t really have a lot of football experience, other than the high school and college games that I had worked a number of years earlier. I remember going out to the audition, I felt pretty confident, I studied, and practiced, and watched other games, but once we were out there, thinking back now, there’s so much I’ve learned along the way.”

He said that growth process continues to this day.

“And I’m still learning, you get better with each and every broadcast, whether’s it’s rules, game-management situations, you kind of see something new. It’s not every game, but I had the crazy Patriots-Raiders ending this past year, with the laterals and Chandler Jones scoring the touching. That’s something nobody had ever seen, a game ending just like that. You just never know.”

But a helpful thing for Albert early on was that he’d been around broadcasts for a long time, from doing stats for his father Marv through calling high school and college games locally through NHL, NBA, and MLB work.

“I had worked by that point, NHL games for two years on TV, I had filled in on some MLB games, not many, and I had filled in on some NBA games. I’d done a lot of college games, soccer, lacrosse, other sports, so I kind of had a wide variety back then. So I think it did almost feel like an extension; during my high school and college years, I was really fortunate to work probably 20-25 DIII college games at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and Wagner College on Long Island and Staten Island, so I was really lucky to get the reps.”

“But it had still been a long time; I think the last [football broadcast] I did was Wagner College in 1989, so it had been five years. I also spent a lot of time, I did stats for my father on not only hockey and basketball, but also NFL, and he was working NFL on NBC, I was doing that probably from 87-88 through 92. I spent a lot of time doing stats for him, and I was in the booth, so I was able to learn by osmosis and listen in to what went on between the announcers and the production truck.”

“So I think that was a big part of it as well, even though I wasn’t on the air. Just being in the booth, sitting in on those production meetings, watching the preparation, and listening and observing what takes place during the actual broadcast. That was a big part of the learning experience as well.”

Albert calls countless sports these days, including MLB for Fox, NHL for TNT and for the New York Rangers (radio), and selected NBA Knicks broadcasts for MSG. He’s also called college football and basketball, Olympic sports and more. And he called four sports in one month in 2019. But he said the NFL still has a special place in his heart.

“The NFL is so special. Growing up, I loved all sports. And I was real fortunate: my goal in college was to do hockey on the radio, and I did that. And back then, I didn’t have a lot of experience. Cox Cable, when I was in high school, happened to come to my high school and film a girls’ basketball game when I was in 10th grade. And I volunteered to announce that game, and wound up working 75-100 games for them over the next three years in all sports, basketball, hockey, football, baseball, soccer, lacrosse. And that was really the variety I loved: from the outset, I just really loved the challenge and the opportunity of working all different sports. So I had that opportunity in high school just by luck, the fact that they came to my high school and I volunteered.”

In Week 17 of the 2022 NFL season, Albert called his 476th NFL game, eighth all time. He said that’s still hard to believe, and it stands out given how dominant the NFL is.

” That’s unfathomable. But it’s still so special. And I’m so fortunate to have worked two Stanley Cup Finals now in the last three years on the TV side, basketball and baseball playoff games, six Winter Olympics, hockey. But the NFL, we had our seminar and there was a presentation, 82 of the top 100 shows last year were NFL games. The scope of people watching these games is huge.”

Albert said he has particularly fond memories of working with Daryl “Moose” Johnston and Tony “Goose” Siragusa.

“I remember when I worked with Moose and Goose for those eight years, and those years were just incredible with those two guys, they were both larger-than-life characters. And I was just at an event for charity honoring Goose, and raising money for charity, so it was great to see his family and friends. Those years were even extra special; we did playoff games five years in a row, divisional playoffs, and there’s probably 40 million people watching those games. The NFL obviously holds a special place, and it’s an honor to have called it for this long and to have been given the mantle, work those five playoff games, work the Pro Bowl.”

As for what Albert really remembers, he said it’s more moments than games.

“It’s more that there were certain moments within those games. I called the Victor Cruz 99-yard-touchdown against the Jets. I worked the game in 2000 when Terrell Owens stomped on the Cowboys’ star after scoring a touchdown with the Niners. I had the game when Michael Vick had the crazy 40-plus-yard touchdown run in overtime in Minnesota, early in his career. The play I mentioned with Chandler Jones and the Raiders this past year. Bill Cowher shoving the Polaroid into the referee’s shirt pocket back in 1995, when they had 12 men on the field.”

“The 52-49 Saints-Giants game [in 2015], when Eli [Manning] and [Drew] Brees combined for 13 touchdown passes. The list goes on and on. I had the game where Donovan McNabb didn’t realize there were tie games, I had the only punter-to-kicker touchdown pass in NFL history with the Dolphins a few years ago. So there are just so many moments that stand out, and partners that I’ve worked with, all great people. …It’s just great memories from each and every one of them.”

Albert’s first NFL game this year will be the Jacksonville Jaguars at the Indianapolis Colts Sunday. The full Week 1 announcing schedule is here.