As soon as reports came out that Fox NFL analyst Troy Aikman was in deep negotiations with ESPN to be their new Monday Night Football analyst, the news sent shockwaves across the NFL world and opened up a whole slew of questions about what happens next and how the dominoes fall for ESPN, Fox, Amazon, and other networks.
Since then, it’s been reported that Amazon has tried and failed to convince Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay to join their booth and was unable to get San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch to join them as well. Meanwhile, names like Sean Payton, Greg Olsen, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady have been bandied about as potential suitors at Fox, ESPN, and Amazon.
One name that might seem obvious in retrospect but hadn’t been thought of too much was Kirk Herbstreit. The longtime lead analyst of ESPN’s College GameDay has also been the network’s lead college football TV analyst for ABC’s Saturday college football primetime games. Herbie has shown a lot of interest in the NFL in recent years, however, and has called multiple MNF games in recent years. He’s even said that “in a perfect world,” he’d get to call both NFL and college football games.
Amazon may apparently grant him that wish as, according to the NY Post’s Andrew Marchand, the company is eyeing Kirk as their new Thursday Night Football NFL analyst.
“Substantial talks between the sides have not begun yet, but are expected to pick up shortly,” wrote Marchand.
Marchand says that it’s possible that Herbstreit could do NFL games for Amazon and still cover college football for ESPN/ABC, but there’s a lot of details to work out around that.
Given how much money Amazon was reportedly throwing at Sean McVay, Herbstreit could be in a big payday, whether he takes the offer or gets a new contract from ESPN. It could also be a way to ensure that he gets to call NFL games at ESPN as well.
We’ll see how this and all the other wild NFL TV booth reports play out, but in the meantime, the news that Herbstreit could potentially give up his college football role for an NFL one has a lot of people talking on social media.
This would be a bombshell. https://t.co/ci79oQEhog
— Kyle Rowland (@KyleRowland) February 27, 2022
Herbie would be a great choice for Amazon, and he wouldn’t have to leave his CFB gig with ESPN either. https://t.co/Y7ZOEcGzBW
— uSTADIUM (@uSTADIUM) February 27, 2022
I mean…I get it, but yeah…really wish they'd gone in a different direction. https://t.co/sl9UgLTj8q
— Andrew Hammond (@ahammALDC) February 27, 2022
hire new talent, please. I promise it’s other folks that can do this at a high level. https://t.co/8X7u5OQuIo
— Aaron Ladd (@aaronladdtv) February 27, 2022
Protect Herby at all costs. He cannot leave college football 😩 https://t.co/7WJOnyFKFZ
— Nick Cothrel (@NickCothrel) February 27, 2022
Kirk's agent is working hard this weekend https://t.co/JOmDST7u5s
— Pete Sirianni (@petersirianni) February 27, 2022
We’ll see where Herbstreit gets off on the NFL TV announcer carousel that is currently spinning. Until then, buckle up, college football and NFL fans!
