Fox NFL Sunday has been the league’s preeminent pregame show for over three decades.
The league’s go-to Sunday morning show saw its streak as the most-watched pregame show extend to 31 straight seasons this past year. As Curt Menefee mentioned on the Awful Announcing Podcast, part of that magic is how genuine the crew’s friendship is, and it really comes through on screen.
But now the show faces a big change with Jimmy Johnson stepping away. The 81-year-old didn’t officially retire before Super Bowl LIX but announced a few weeks later that he’s stepping back from TV, at least for now. Erin Andrews hinted it might not be forever, but it’s enough to get people wondering who’ll replace him.
Luckily, this transition won’t be a total shock.
Since COVID, Johnson had been splitting time — sometimes doing the show remotely from Florida, sometimes in the studio — and Rob Gronkowski has been filling in regularly.
“So, now, we just gotta transition a little bit,” Menefee told host Brandon Contes. “So, I think that that helps because, one, the audience is used to Gronk being with us. Two, Gronk is used to being with us. And, three, we’re used to being with Gronk. It’s not like you’re bringing in a brand new face. I don’t think they’ve announced how much he’s going to be working, if it’s gonna be more, the same, or whatever. But I think the transition is going to be smoother because it’s a familiar face, and someone that we’ve all worked together with… It goes back to a group of people that we’re all together quite frequently, and I think that helps.”
It also helps that they’ve known this was coming for a while now. According to Menefee, Johnson announced he was retiring two seasons ago, and they had a going-away dinner for him. That was at the end of January, following the NFC Championship Game, because Fox didn’t have the Super Bowl that year.
“And then in April, he’s like, ‘Well, guys, I’m coming back,'” Menefee recalled. “And we were like, ‘What the hell?’ You know, we spent money; we had a good time doing all of this. But, obviously, we loved having him back. And so, he came back two more years. So, I don’t think we were surprised. Look, Jimmy is as energetic, as focused, as anybody I know at the age of 81, but he’s also 81. And at some point, you go, you’re not doing this forever. He’s flying to the Florida Keys each and every week.
“And so, when he would come out. He and I, and Terry [Bradshaw] mostly, would watch college football together on Saturdays at the hotel we stayed at in Los Angeles. And it was different this year than it has been in years past. Because in the past couple of years, he would get to the end of the year…it would hit him a little bit more. This year, it was Octoberish, November, that he started talking, ‘You know what? I’m thinking this is it.’ So, it was not an official goodbye then. It wasn’t even official until after the Super Bowl when we did that big AI retrospective on his career.”
Many people, including us, were wondering, is that it?
“That’s one of the reasons I asked him on the air,” Menefee said. “And he didn’t want to make a commitment at that time, because he said he didn’t want to do it like he did before, where you said it, and then you change your mind. But I was not surprised just based off of sitting around on Saturdays and shooting the crap with him, that this time, he was for real.”
Listen to the full episode of the Awful Announcing Podcast featuring Curt Menefee beginning Friday, May 16. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. For more content, subscribe to AA’s YouTube page.
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.