Jets' QB Aaron Rodgers after a loss in London on Oct. 6, 2024. Jets’ QB Aaron Rodgers after a loss in London on Oct. 6, 2024. (Shaun Brooks/Imagn Images.)

Here’s a look at the announcing assignments for Week 6 of the NFL season, with some discussion of a featured game in each slot based on broadcasters, matchups, or both. All times are Eastern.

Thursday, October 10

Featured/Only Game: San Francisco at Seattle
Prime Video 8:15 p.m.
Al Michaels, Kirk Herbstreit, Kaylee Hartung
Spanish: Miguel Gurwitz, Rolando Cantú
Westwood One Radio: Kevin Kugler, Ron Rivera

Seahawks' QB Geno Smith against the Miami Dolphins on Sept. 22, 2024.
Seahawks’ QB Geno Smith against the Miami Dolphins on Sept. 22, 2024. (Kevin Ng/Imagn Images.)

This matchup looked stronger before the season thanks to the 49ers being Super Bowl runners-up, but they’ve struggled to a 2-3 mark so far. However, the rest of the NFC West has had issues to date as well: the Los Angeles Rams are 1-4, the Arizona Cardinals are also 2-3, and the host Seahawks here lead the division at 3-2. So there’s plenty at stake for both teams.

Interestingly enough, the 49ers have a better point differential (+20 to +8) despite their worse record. That’s partly due to a one-point home loss against Arizona last week. Meanwhile, the Seahawks are coming off a nine-point home loss to the struggling New York Giants, and they’re 3.5-point home underdogs here. We’ll see what they can do, and we’ll see if the Prime broadcast follows CBS’ lead from last week in listening to Joel McHale’s plea and not showing the typical Seattle B-roll of thrown fish at Pike Place Market.

Sunday, October 13, international window

Featured/Only Game: Jacksonville vs Chicago (London)
NFL Network 9:30 a.m.
Rich Eisen, Kurt Warner, Stacey Dales, Steve Wyche
Westwood One: JP Shadrick, Charles Tillman

Caleb Williams against the Titans in Week 1 of the 2024 NFL season.
Bears’ QB Caleb Williams against the Titans in Week 1 of the 2024 NFL season. (Mike Dinovo/Imagn Images.)

The NFL’s international games continue with this third of five, and the second of three straight in London. Like last week’s New York Jets-Minnesota Vikings clash, this will be at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and will be called by the NFL Network team of Eisen and Warner in the booth and Dales on one sideline, with Wyche tagging in for Good Morning Football‘s Jamie Erdahl as the other sideline reporter.

Like the Thursday game, this also looked perhaps a bit more interesting before the season began given all the hype about No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams. He’s been okay so far for Chicago, throwing for 1,091 yards with five touchdowns. But he’s tossed four interceptions and has just a 62.9 percent completion mark, so that’s not the level many had hoped for. Still, Williams is just 22 and is adjusting to the league, and he had maybe his best game yet last week against the struggling Panthers (now 1-4), throwing for 304 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions. And now, he and the (-1.5) Bears face another 1-4 team in the Jaguars, who have allowed 143 points (third-worst in the league) to date.

Sunday, October 13, early window

Featured Game 1: Washington at Baltimore
CBS/Paramount+ 1 p.m.
Jim Nantz, Tony Romo, Tracy Wolfson
ESPN Radio: Steve Levy, Sal Paolantonio

Washington Commanders' QB Jayden Daniels against the New York Giants on Sept. 15, 2024.
Washington Commanders’ QB Jayden Daniels against the New York Giants on Sept. 15, 2024. (Peter Casey/Imagn Images.)

Quick, who’s leading the NFL in points scored? As everyone expected, it’s the 4-1 Washington Commanders with 155. Perhaps almost as surprising, the Ravens are second with 147, so there’s a good reason this game has the second-highest over/under line (51.5) of the week. No. 2 overall pick Jayden Daniels has been dynamite for the Commanders so far, throwing for 1,135 yards and four touchdowns (against two interceptions), completing a stunning 77.1 percent of his passes, rushing for 300 yards and four touchdowns, and winning raves from many for his play:

But the 3-2 Ravens (6.5-point home favorites) have an elite QB themselves in two-time (2019, 2023) NFL MVP Lamar Jackson, who’s thrown for 1,206 yards and nine touchdowns (with one interception and a 65.3 percent completion mark) to date while rushing for 363 yards and two touchdowns. And they’ve taken their run game to a new level with the free agency signing of Derrick Henry, who has 572 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns so far and has them leading the league with 211.2 rushing yards per game.

However, Washington is second there with 178.4. So the “exotic smashmouth” run-game battle here will be just as worth watching as the QB one. And this should be an entertaining and likely high-scoring game overall. (That’s if you can watch it, though; while this has CBS’ top broadcast team, they only have the singleheader this week, and they have four other games across two windows they’re sending to large swathes of the country.)

Arizona at Green Bay
Fox 1 p.m.
Kevin Kugler, Daryl Johnston, Laura Okmin
Sports USA Radio: Josh Appel, James White

Houston at New England
CBS/Paramount+ 1 p.m.
Kevin Harlan, Trent Green, Melanie Collins

Featured Game 2: Tampa Bay at New Orleans
Fox 1 p.m.
Adam Amin, Greg Olsen, Pam Oliver

Tampa Bay Buccaneers' QB Baker Mayfield after a Sept. 8, 2024 win against. Washington.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ QB Baker Mayfield after a Sept. 8, 2024 win against. Washington. (Nathan Ray Seebeck/Imagn Images.)

After a scorching start where they won their first two games and outscored the Carolina Panthers and Dallas Cowboys 91-29, the Saints have dropped their last three. But there are reasons to be curious about their clash here with the 3-2 Buccaneers. For one, quarterback Derek Carr is expected to miss multiple games after suffering an oblique injury in Monday’s loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, leading to rookie Spencer Rattler getting his first NFL start. Rattler impressed in college at Oklahoma and South Carolina and looked good in the preseason, so it will be interesting to see what he can do here.

Meanwhile, the Buccaneers are coming off a tough 36-30 overtime loss against the Atlanta Falcons last Thursday. They’re also coming off a difficult week; they relocated to New Orleans Tuesday ahead of Hurricane Milton closing in on the Tampa area and ultimately doing major damage there Wednesday night. We’ll see what Baker Mayfield (who’s excelled against the blitz, and also as an undercover fan “Gus Swayze“) and the Bucs (3.5-point road favorites) can do here

It will also be interesting to see how Olsen fits in with Amin (who’s subbing for Joe Davis, who’s on MLB playoff duty). It’s Olsen’s second straight week with someone other than Davis; he worked with Jason Benetti last week and won praise there. So Olsen gets to show off some further potential versatility in this one.

Cleveland at Philadelphia
Fox 1 p.m.
Kenny Albert, Jonathan Vilma, Megan Olivi
Compass Media Radio: Chris Carrino, Brian Baldinger

Indianapolis at Tennessee
CBS/Paramount+ 1 p.m.
Spero Dedes, Adam Archuleta, Aditi Kinkhabwala

Sunday, October 13, afternoon window

LA Chargers at Denver
CBS/Paramount+ 4:05 p.m.
Andrew Catalon, Tiki Barber, Jason McCourty, AJ Ross
Sports USA Radio: Ted Robinson, Mark Carrier

Pittsburgh at Las Vegas
CBS/Paramount+ 4:05 p.m.
Ian Eagle, Charles Davis, Evan Washburn

Atlanta at Carolina
Fox 4:25 p.m.
Chris Myers, Mark Sanchez, Kristina Pink

Featured Game: Detroit at Dallas
Fox 4:25 p.m.
Kevin Burkhardt, Tom Brady, Erin Andrews, Tom Rinaldi

Cowboys' QB Dak Prescott ahead of a game against the Giants on Sept. 26, 2024.
Cowboys’ QB Dak Prescott ahead of a game against the Giants on Sept. 26, 2024. (Robert Deutsch/Imagn Images.)

It’s a small afternoon lineup again this week and this will be the main game most of the country can watch on broadcast. The West Coast, much of Mountain Time, and parts of the Midwest will have the option of one of the CBS late games, while a small area around Atlanta and Charlotte will get Falcons-Panthers instead, but there will be a lot of people whose only non-Sunday Ticket option is Burkhardt and Brady calling Lions and Cowboys.

This is the fourth Cowboys game Brady has worked in his six-week regular-season game analyst career so far, which says a lot about how much Fox loves putting Dallas in that afternoon “America’s Game of the Week” window and sending their top broadcast team there. But it’s the first time he’s covered them in three weeks, and they’ve actually looked better in the two games without him on the call, posting wins over the New York Giants (on Thursday Night Football) and Pittsburgh Steelers (on Sunday Night Football) to improve to 3-2. We’ll see what the 3-1 Lions (who are coming off a bye) can do in this one, where they’re favored by three.

Sunday, October 13, Sunday Night Football

Featured/Only Game: Cincinnati at NY Giants
NBC/Universo/Peacock 8:20 p.m.
Mike Tirico, Cris Collinsworth, Melissa Stark
Universo: Miguel Gurwitz, Rolando Cantú, Ariana Figuera
Westwood One Radio: Ryan Radtke, Mike Golic

Bengals' QB Joe Burrow against the Patriots in Week 1 of the 2024 NFL season.
Bengals’ QB Joe Burrow against the Patriots in Week 1 of the 2024 NFL season. (Cara Owsley/The Enquirer, via Imagn Images.)

A remarkable element with the Bengals thus far is the wide discrepancy between the quarterback play they’re getting from Joe Burrow (1,370 passing yards and 12 touchdowns with a 72.3 percent completion mark and just two interceptions) and their team results (they’re 1-4). Of course, a large part of that is about their defense; while they’ve scored 140 points, fourth in the league, they’ve allowed 145, ahead of only the Carolina Panthers.

Meanwhile, the Giants (3.5-point home underdogs) have a better record at 2-3, but have only scored 89 points and have allowed 104. And quarterback Daniel Jones has been much less impressive than Burrow, throwing for 1,138 yards with six touchdowns, three interceptions, and a 64.0 percent completion mark. But he is coming off one of his best performances, throwing for 257 yards and two TDs with no picks in a win over Seattle last week. We’ll see what he and the resistible force of the Giants’ offense can do against the movable object that is the Cincinnati defense.

Monday, October 14, Monday Night Football

Featured/Only Game: Buffalo at NY Jets
ESPN/ESPN2/ESPN Deportes 8:15 p.m.
Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Lisa Salters
ESPN2: Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Bill Belichek, Guests TBA
ESPN Deportes: Rebeca Landa, Sebastián Martinez-Christensen, MJ Acosta-Ruiz
Westwood One Radio: Kevin Harlan, Devin McCourty

Bills' QB Josh Allen against the Dolphins on Sept. 12, 2024.
Bills’ QB Josh Allen against the Dolphins on Sept. 12, 2024. (Jasen Vinlove/Imagn Images.)

The Jets are obviously going to draw a lot of attention heading into this coming off the surprising firing of head coach Robert Saleh, the stripping of play-calling duties from offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, the elevation of Jeff Ulbrich and Todd Downing to those roles, and the debates about the role quarterback Aaron Rodgers may or may not have played in all of that. But the 2-3 start certainly isn’t what many had hoped for from this team. We’ll see what they can do to turn that around on this national stage.

Meanwhile, the Bills (2.5-point road favorites) are rolling along okay at 3-2, leading the AFC East, and they’ve outscored opponents 142-106 to date. But they have some of their own questions to answer coming off a 23-20 road loss to the Houston Texans last week, especially around how quarterback Josh Allen returned to the game late after a head hit. It’s part of what’s been a strange season for Allen; he’s only thrown for 945 yards through five games with a 60.3 percent completion mark but has tossed eight touchdowns and no interceptions, and some of that has been about rests in blowouts, and then injuries (this week, he’s also been listed as dealing with left hand and ankle injuries). It will be interesting to see him in a nationally televised showdown with Rodgers.

BYE: Kansas City, LA Rams, Miami, Minnesota

H/T Sammy for the listings!

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.