Chris Spielman’s time with Fox Sports has come to an end. On Tuesday, the Detroit Lions announced that Spielman was joining the franchise as a special assistant in the team’s front office.
Notably, this is a full-time role, meaning that he would be leaving his broadcasting role with Fox.
Here’s Spielman’s statement about the new job, via the Lions.
“I am humbled and excited about the opportunity to be involved with the franchise that is truly a part of me. The opportunity to work with Rod Wood and every single person in the Lions organization can’t get here fast enough. To Lions fans everywhere, I will do everything in my power to help Mrs. Hamp and the Ford Family achieve their vision of something we can all be proud of.”
And here’s a tweet, thanking Fox for his time with the company.
https://twitter.com/chris_spielman/status/1338924882621575177
This season, Spielman has worked with Kevin Kugler on Fox’s NFL coverage. In 2016, his first year with the network, he worked with both Dick Stockton and the duo of Thom Brennaman and Charles Davis, while from 2017 to 2019, he worked with Brennaman on a weekly basis (except during the MLB Postseason).
Prior to joining Fox, Spielman was a fixture on ESPN’s college football coverage, and his partnership with Sean McDonough was one of the more well-liked broadcast crews on the network.
As for how Spielman’s early departure will affect Fox’s NFL plans for the rest of the season, I don’t think it really will until Week 17. The network only has five games in each of Weeks 15 and 16, meaning they will likely be well-covered. Week 17 will be the standard all hands on deck gong show with all 32 teams playing, but even if Fox has eight games as opposed to seven, they should be able to scrape together a couple extra analysts if needed (especially since they will have no college football that weekend).
