Coronavirus Killed The Collinsworth Slide In

Front Office Sports- With no preseason games to warm up, NBC Sports is adapting on the fly as it prepares to televise the 2020 NFL Kickoff game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans Sept. 10.

NBC viewers will notice several changes wrought by COVID-19 during 19 “Sunday Night Football” game telecasts this season. Say goodbye to the “Collinsworth Slide” and on-field sideline reporters. Say hello to pre-recorded crowd noise that will be piped into empty stadiums that don’t have any fans. 

NBC “Sunday Night Football” game telecasts typically start with an introduction by play-by-play announcer Al Michaels before his analyst partner Cris Collinsworth glides in from off-screen.  

Michaels said the slide is out, at least for a while, due to social distancing guidelines. “I was watching a baseball game the other night and the guy was trying to steal second and he goes to the ground and comes up six feet short,” Michaels said. “So maybe that will be our slide this year.”

Blogger's Note: I am republishing this blog 6 days after I wrote it since Cris Collinsworth didn't slide in tonight and likely confused a bunch of viewers. Hopefully this will prevent people from writing a VERY strongly-worded letter to their local NBC affiliates 

2020 did it again, amiright? *nudges you with elbow*

Honestly, Corona taking down the Collinsworth Slide makes perfect sense because anything that could be considered remotely good has been impacted by this pandemic and the slide in by Cris Collinsworth as he flashed those pearly whites was about as organically pure as it gets in this jaded world we live in. So I’m more than fine with putting the slide on ice in the interest of everybody’s well-being along with the slide being too good for this weird coronaseason anyway where everything will be the Coke Zero version of the real thing.

So here’s a taste of what we can look forward to in 2021 or whenever the fuck we figure this shit out and get back to normal life.