There was a school of thought that Fox would make some additions to its pregame show(s) after some notable departures. Jimmy Johnson retired, Peter Schrager departed for ESPN, while Michael Vick became the head football coach at Norfolk State University.
But that’s not happening.
Charissa Thompson, who hosts Fox NFL Kickoff, as well as Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football pregame show, said she was expecting a “shakeup” at Fox Sports this season, at least on her 11 a.m. ET show. But that shakeup doesn’t mean any new additions; it just means that Thompson, who signed a lucrative extension with Fox over the summer, will be joined by Julian Edelman, Charles Woodson, and Colin Cowherd for the time being.
As for Fox NFL Sunday, the network will not have an immediate heir to the former Dallas Cowboys head coach. Awful Announcing floated some names as potential successors. Still, the network clearly feels comfortable with its Emmy Award-winning cast that includes Curt Menefee, Howie Long, Terry Bradshaw, Michael Strahan, Rob Gronkowski, and Jay Glazer.
The NFL’s No. 1 studio show for 31 consecutive seasons obviously feels that five is a good number. Perhaps they added Gronk in mind with the expectation that one of the original cast members would step aside. That wound up being Johnson, despite his confusing retirement timeline, even though Erin Andrews has speculated that he might “come back” to the network “every now and then.”
But with no immediate replacement in mind, the attention turns to the former New England Patriots tight end who re-joined Fox in 2022 after an initial stint as a studio analyst in 2019. And with Gronkowski on set, there’s always the possibility for Brady — hologram version or not — to join the show, Edelman, too.
After all, the pregame show has become “Patriots Central,” according to WFAN’s Boomer Esiason.
Central to the aforementioned shakeup that Thompson did mention is that Fox NFL Kickoff will broadcast from a brand-new, state-of-the-art studio, which will utilize the same cutting-edge technology employed on the Fox NFL Sunday set. No word yet on whether any Greg Olsen holograms will pop up, but the visuals are definitely getting an upgrade.
What we’ll get, though, is a couple of slightly different-looking shows for the 2025 NFL season.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.