Kenny Albert calling a NFL on Fox game at MetLife Stadium in 2019. Kenny Albert calling a NFL on Fox game at MetLife Stadium in 2019. (Fox Sports.)

Kenny Albert’s first game with newly minted NFL on Fox analyst Jonathan Vilma won’t be this week – and it may not be next week, either.

Per the New York Post, Albert, who has been in the NHL’s bubble in Edmonton, will need to quarantine for two weeks before he can call an NFL game on-site.

The NFL has made a rule that anyone coming from a foreign country has to quarantine for two weeks. Albert, 52, for the past month has worked NHL playoff games for NBC in Edmonton.

Canada has a superior COVID record compared to the United States and Albert had been tested multiple times per week there. Still, the NFL is staying with its protocols. It will put Albert’s spot in limbo for next week, as well.

Vilma will call Sunday’s Bears-Lions game with Dick Stockton instead of Albert. Stockton was not scheduled to work a Fox game this week. Next week is still up in the air, but Fox has seven games as opposed to six, meaning that if Albert can’t go, a college football announcer like Tim Brando, Joe Davis, or Brandon Gaudin could be nudged into action in addition to Stockton. This would seemingly work out alright for Fox, since their Week 3 college football schedule is currently nonexistent thanks to the Big 12’s bye week.

[New York Post]

About Joe Lucia

I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.