Former KU star Aqib Talib on his NFL announcing debut for Fox: ‘I was on the money’
Last Sunday’s Lions-Washington game was seen only in most of Michigan and the Washington D.C. area.
That’s not much of the country, but Fox Sports had a larger-than-usual schedule of eight NFL games. That glut of games opened the door for a newcomer to make his debut.
Former KU star cornerback Aqib Talib was the analyst working with Dan Hellie.
“I was on the money,” Talib told the Washington Post after watching tape of his gig. “I ain’t throwing nobody under the bus or something. Un-uh, everything I said, they did it.”
Here is one of Talib’s calls from the game via Twitter user Risa Balayem:
Talib’s work caught the attention of viewers, including Taylor Rooks of Turner Sports and Bleacher Report:
Former NFL wide receiver Torrey Smith tweeted this:
Sam Monson of Pro Football Focus wrote:
Former ESPN broadcaster Jemele Hill tweeted:
Talib, who played 12 seasons in the NFL with four teams, was asked by the Post about people who didn’t prefer his broadcasting style.
“I’m different,” Talib said. “We’re from different places, we don’t talk the same. … I’m going to go up there and try to talk as professional as I can on TV because I know there are a lot of people listening. At the end of the day, I’m going to talk what I know and I’m going to talk what I see. That’s what I was told to do in the audition, and the audition was good enough to get me on Fox, so that’s what I did.”
John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal spoke with Brad Zager, the executive vice president/head of production and operations for Fox Sports, about Talib’s debut.
“We don’t have any thought right now to changing our crews or mixing things up for the rest of the season,” Zager told Ourand. “But other games can pop up. We like what we’ve seen.”
