One of the most compelling storylines of the 2022 NFL season has been less about what’s happening on the field, and more about what’s happened in the broadcast booth.
After a few weeks’ worth of games, viewers noticed that NBC color analyst Cris Collinsworth has ditched the “Collinsworth Slide,” a signature maneuver of the broadcaster that had him enter the camera frame with a silky-smooth glide across the broadcast booth desk.
On Sept. 20, Collinsworth explained where the slide came from, and much to the chagrin of viewers and fans of such non-important things, why it’s no longer a part of “Sunday Night Football” broadcasts:
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Collinsworth’s explanation of the origin and the demise in full:
So, there you have it, folks: You can blame Mike Tirico for the reason that the ‘Collinsworth Slide’ is no more.
So I straddle that piece of tape and I sit in there, just like I’m gonna be talking to Al. So then the cameraman comes over there and he looks at me, and Al’s gonna do his opening monologue, so they shoot this solo shot of him, and he goes, ‘Cris, get your ass out of the frame. What are you doing? Get out of the way.’ So I go, ‘You told me to sit on the piece of tape, what do you mean ‘get out of the way?’’
So he goes, ‘Just lean out of the picture, your shoulder’s in the picture.’ So I just lean, like that and get out of the picture. So then Al comes on and does his, ‘Welcome to Lambeau Field today, let’s welcome in my partner Cris Collinsworth,’ so then I just slide in, so that I still have my legs between the piece of tape. So that’s how the whole thing got started. …
But, Mike Tirico doesn’t do the opening monologue, so what am I gonna do? It’s like, I’m sittin’ there. I could lean out — but then it’d be like, stupid. So what do you do? Do you do it just for effect? Do you do it for — I don’t know, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Maybe I’ll leave that way.
