Cris Collinsworth slid in from the left, taking Twitter by surprise

If you’ve watched Sunday Night Football, you know the opening tends to be a close-up on Al Michaels setting up the game before Cris Collinsworth joins to make it a two shot.

He generally slides in on his chair, which is probably about as loose and whimsical as Cris Collinsworth is going to get. People grew to expect it, and even look forward to it, with varying degrees of irony. The SNF crew realized this, leading to a supercut of the Collinsworth slide earlier this week:

✨A tradition unlike any other✨

The @CollinsworthPFF Slide is iconic. pic.twitter.com/e4U2AqHAjd

— Sunday Night Football on NBC (@SNFonNBC) December 10, 2018

It had become a reliable weekly tradition. Tonight, though, Collinsworth called an audible:

https://twitter.com/SNFonNBC/status/1074473779928186880

Twitter had just started counting on Cris to come in from stage right, and now he’s doing things like coming in from the other side of the screen!

THE OLD SWITCHROO!!! What a repsonse !!!! pic.twitter.com/dccr8hJ7d4

— PFT Commenter (@PFTCommenter) December 17, 2018

https://twitter.com/CooperTWatson/status/1074475376565456896

When Colinsworth hits the reverse slide in pic.twitter.com/ZoT3vAow7v

— Fitz (@FitzGSN_) December 17, 2018

REVERSE SLIDE.

DON'T DO IT TO EM, CRIS. pic.twitter.com/vPFAlsii9q

— Dom (@DomGarrett) December 17, 2018

So, there we are. Collinsworth has slid in from the left, which does probably complete the evolution of the slide, unless he somehow enters the booth via grappling hook zipline from across the field. It’s a surprisingly quick move, given the circumstances; we’d just gotten used to the premise and Collinsworth has already played the logical dramatic card, like how God Friended Me did an episode about God unfriending him like four shows in.

It does, however, mean we get to wonder which side of the screen Collinsworth will be coming in from, which means a chance for some gambling action, which should keep Al Michaels interested.