O’Donnell: Tony Romo is already again weakening CBS/NFL coverage

A WEEK AND A GAME INTO the 2025 NFL season and there's already bad news for more aware TV viewers:

Tony Romo remains on CBS's No. 1 broadcast team.

That stagnant addled rank was expected. But it still came as an ice-water moment to some last Sunday when the Fisheye Network transitioned from a great Steelers-Jets watch in the Chicago market to Packers-Lions — and Romo and the increasingly wearied Jim Nantz — at 3:25 p.m.

Romo's cul-de-sac semantics weighted down the telecast throughout. He wasted no time in spacing out, referring to GB quarterback Jordan Love as “Jared Love” on the second play from scrimmage.

(Last season, Romo also swung and sniffed at the Packers QB, calling him “Jarrett Love.” Must be something about the northern Wisconsin air — “Appleton Love” could be next.)

ROMO IS NOW IN YEAR SIX of his 10-season, $180M deal with CBS. He is long past his comet-like startup with the web (2017-19), a span when he sparkled.

Now, in decline since the pandemic, Romo has devolved into a predictably featherweight, banal impost to too many high-marquee games on CBS.

Respected national observers from Andrew Marchand of The Athletic on down have long been hinting that CBS executives have been trying to proactively solve their Romo Rootkill.

THEY TENDERED SERIOUS BANK with that $180M and have come up dry. A 2023 “intervention” didn't work. Romo butchered the dramatic final play of Super Bowl 58 in February 2024 (a Patrick Mahomes pass in OT to beat SF). Now, for the next five months, he'll just be numbing audio ice water.

That the CBS Sunday opened last week with J.J. Watt working alongside Ian Eagle on PIT-NYJ wasn't lost on those following Romo's sort of dramatic booth decline.

Watt was green but promising. He had the added caveat of calling a game in which younger brother T.J. Watt helped steady the Steelers against a markedly crisp Jets QB Justin Fields. The presence of the supremely facile Eagle also didn't hurt.

There will be no Romo downdraft in Chicago Sunday since the Bears-Lions (noon, Fox) commands an early single with Kenny Albert and Jonathan Vilma on the call. Romo-Nantz will be wading through a BUF-NYJ nooner to about 30% of the nation.

THERE'S ALSO NO IRONY OR LAMENT in any of this.

Romo, age 45, has bounded so far from his blue-collar roots in Burlington, Wisconsin, (and at Eastern Illinois University) that it's near Powerball level. Being an early arc-out as an overpaid NFL national TV analyst is not an indictable offense.

The carnivores at CBS corporate recently showed how far they will go to turn a buck by poleaxing Stephen Colbert's nightly blue-fest as an unstated sacrifice toward gaining FCC approval for their merger as a division of Paramount Global into Skydance Media.

SO WHAT IF TONY ROMO GETS lost with his Loves?

Among the Fisheye/NFL set, he's still a very wealthy No. 1.

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NBC'S “SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL” CATCHES a break tonight with its showcasing of white-hot J.J. McCarthy and the host Vikings against the Falcons.

Over/under on mentions of “La Grange Park, Illinois” — McCarthy's West suburban hometown — is 3½. The game is expected to present enough theater to keep Mike Tirico engaged. (He repeatedly called Cowboys QB Dak Prescott “Jalen Hurts” during the “Thursday Night” DAL-PHL season opener).

What's roughest news for Bears fans is that the NFC North is already moving into a two-tier — or three — division. That'd place the Vikings and Packers in Tier 1, the Lions in an uncertain middle and the Bears once again down below.

The lower rung expands if Caleb Williams decides to play a full game and Ben Johnson and pre-snap jumpers somehow upset the host Lions. (A far too risky projection to chase, although CHI +6 teases.)

KEVIN O'CONNELL AND THE VIKINGS LAUNCH into an intriguing four weeks to try and keep pace with Matt LeFleur's Packers. After the “SNF” match vs. ATL, Minnesota hosts the Bengals and then plays consecutive Sundays in Europe.

McCarthy and mates face Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers in Dublin's Croke Park on Sept. 28 before floating across the Irish Sea for a match vs. the Browns in London's Tottenham district — spawning ground of The Dave Clark Five — on Oct. 5.

That's a trip almost worthy of the old days when George Halas had to put his post-World War II Bears on the Santa Fe Chief for a two-day train trip to L.A. to play Bob Waterfield and the relocated Cleveland Rams.

Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.