Cris Collinsworth says today’s players think he played quarterback: ‘They don’t know’

Before Cris Collinsworth became the voice of Sunday Night Football analysis, he was a pretty good football player in his own right. Collinsworth spent eight seasons as a receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals, made three Pro Bowls, and played in two Super Bowls. Sure, he never won a ring, but that’s a résumé most former players-turned-broadcasters would happily take.

Alas, it doesn’t seem to carry much weight with the players Collinsworth now covers. Collinsworth played his last NFL game in 1988, and he has been NBC’s lead NFL analyst since 2009, which means an entire generation of players only knows him as the guy in the booth on Sunday nights.

Collinsworth is well aware of that, as he explained during a recent appearance on The Dan Patrick Show, when the former SportsCenter anchor asked him whether players ever question his credentials when he critiques them.

“Well, they all think I played quarterback somewhere, so they don’t know,” Collinsworth said. “These guys, they don’t know. They don’t know Troy Aikman anymore, you know? I mean, come on. They don’t care. I mean, they really don’t. It’s so funny. I think they just kind of look at me like their dad or something up there.”

Aikman is a three-time Super Bowl champion and a Hall of Famer, but he also hung up his cleats after the 2000 season, before a good chunk of today’s NFL players were even born. To them, Aikman has only ever been a voice on TV, first alongside Joe Buck at Fox and, since 2022, on ESPN’s Monday Night Football. And if the guy with three rings and a gold jacket doesn’t register, the Bengals receiver who retired a dozen years before him doesn’t stand much of a chance.

That’s not to say players tune Collinsworth out entirely, although Cooper Kupp apparently does. In January of this year, the Seattle Seahawks receiver admitted he regularly mutes NFL broadcasts so he can break down what’s actually happening on the field for his kids himself. Still, Kupp made sure to throw NBC’s lead analyst a bone, and as a fellow receiver, he may be one of the few players in the league who knows Collinsworth used to run routes, too.

“Cris Collinsworth, I love you,” Kupp said.

If the lack of recognition from today’s players stings, Collinsworth sure doesn’t let on. He told Patrick that production meetings are still one of his favorite parts of the job, and he had a good reason. Ahead of last week’s Colts-Chiefs game on Sunday Night Football, Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones sat down with the NBC crew and explained, with a totally straight face, that Andy Reid judges players by their “butt crease.” Collinsworth figured Jones was messing with him, right up until Reid walked into the room and, in Collinsworth’s words, “dead serious,” confirmed that the butt crease is very much a thing.

“I go, ‘I feel like I’m in some alternative universe here,'” Collinsworth said.

Today’s players may not know what position Collinsworth played. But at least they’re still willing to tell him about Andy Reid’s butt crease theory.