1. There weren’t many changes at all when it came to NFL broadcast booths for the 2025 season.

The only significant change was Ian Eagle’s longtime partner, Charles Davis, was out and J.J. Watt was in.

The future Hall of Famer had been part of CBS’s NFL Today, but was making a big jump to the network’s No. 2 booth behind Jim Nantz and Tony Romo.

It’s always risky when a former player who doesn’t have experience working games gets thrust into a high-profile job. See: Tom Brady, Jason Witten, Drew Brees and many others.

It’s also ridiculous to judge someone after doing their job for one day, but it’s clear that the future for Watt looks very bright.

What I most liked about Watt’s performance is that he wasn’t treating football like brain surgery. He clearly wants to have fun and entertain while also giving viewers a decent amount of X’s and O’s stuff.

X’s and O’s are good. We need X’s and O’s. But we don’t need three straight hours of X’s and O’s. The great analyst finds the right balance of X’s and O’s and talking like a regular person viewers can relate to.

Watt was a very easy and smooth listen. He didn’t overwhelm the broadcast, he didn’t act like he was smarter than the viewer and he meshed well with his partner Eagle.

Watt came out of the gate hot, quoting Michael Scott’s famous The Office line, “snip, snap, snip snap,” as soon as the game started.

His best moment came when he called for the Jets to run a naked bootleg with quarterback Justin Fields, which is exactly what happened seconds later, resulting in a New York touchdown.

Game 1 couldn’t have been a totally easy assignment for Watt, who had to call a game involving his brother. But you never once thought J.J. was openly rooting for T.J. even though it would’ve been totally fine if he had, given the circumstances. In fact, the brotherly connection even led to this nice moment from J.J.

I do have to issue one teeny tiny correction for Watt, even though it came on a solid moment for the former defensive standout.

After referee John Husey originally called a penalty on the Jets, he corrected his call and announced the penalty was on the Steelers. Watt said this “was like a WWE heel turn” which was a great line. The only thing is that Husey did a “face” turn since he went from bad guy to good guy. Had he called the penalty on the Steelers and then changed it to the Jets, it would’ve been a “heel” turn. But we still give Watt an A for the reference.

Given the senses of humor of Watt and Eagle, they should also regularly play into their slight difference in stature.

People in TV often forget that sports is supposed to be fun. I don’t think that will be a problem for the Eagle-Watt team.

2. It wasn’t just that Ryan Clark was demeaning and dismissive of Peter Schrager on Friday’s Get Up by bringing up the fact that Schrager wasn’t an ex-player so his opinion regarding CeeDee Lamb’s performance in the Thursday opener against the Eagles wasn’t valid.

It was also just an incredibly dumb and telling “criticism.” First off, if Clark doesn’t want non-players on a set with him to share opinions, he should take it up with his ESPN bosses, not Schrager. It’s ESPN higher ups who put Schrager on that desk. Schrager is just doing his job.

In addition, if Clark doesn’t want to hear from Schrager because Schrager never played in the NFL, then I would have to assume Clark doesn’t want to hear from Stephen A. Smith when he appears on First Take, and he doesn’t want to hear from Mina Kimes when she appears on NFL Live, and he doesn’t want to hear from Scott Van Pelt when they do the Monday Night Football pregame show.

Also, if you don’t think Schrager, who is as plugged in as anyone covering the NFL, doesn’t know what he’s talking about, you clearly aren’t paying attention.

The notion that you have to be an ex-player to understand what you watched in a game is preposterous. Calling out Schrager, of all people, for sharing his opinion on an opinion show, is even more preposterous.

3. CBS debuted a new scorebug on Sunday. I give it an A+. NBC’s scorebug is an A. ESPN’s is an A, too. Amazon Prime's scorbug is a B+. Fox’s is an F.

4. Over seven hours of RedZone coverage on Sunday there was a grand total of one minute of commercials. Each spot lasted 15 seconds and this is how things looked for the first ad.

I don’t watch RedZone, but I hope all of you who do were able to survive such a traumatic and life-altering event.

5. Friday’s Chargers-Chiefs game, which was a ROUGH broadcast, to say the least, drew 16.2 million viewers on YouTube.

The opening Friday game last season, Packers-Eagles, aired on Peacock and pulled in 14.2 million viewers.

It’s not surprising that a free game on YouTube would do much better than a game on a paid subscription app.

6. The latest episode of SI Media With Jimmy Traina features an interview with The Athletic’s sports media reporter Andrew Marchand.

Topics discussed: Charles Barkley’s recent comments that he still doesn’t know what’s going on with Inside the NBA on ESPN; Fox and ESPN’s over-the-top college football coverage in Week 1; Lee Corso’s perfect ending; why ESPN dropped Doris Burke and added Tim Legler to its lead NBA crew; Major League Baseball’s television future; ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer product; Ryen Russillo leaving The Ringer and much more.

Following Marchand, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York joins me for our weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. This week, we go through some NFL win total over/unders for the 2025 season, look at Week 1 betting lines and discuss NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube.

You can listen to the SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcast below or on Apple and Spotify.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Monday Night Football begins its season on ESPN tonight with the Vikings and Bears. Here’s how Monday Night Football looked back in 1980.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on X and Instagram.


This article was originally published on www.si.com as J.J. Watt Had Very Impressive Debut As Game Analyst.