A major shakeup to the Sunday Night Football matchup between the Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers was announced hours before kickoff.
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Mike Tirico Sidelined For Week 9 of Sunday Night Football
Longtime Sunday Night Football color commentator Mike Tirico announced that he would be absent from the booth for the matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals.
"Unfortunately, I will have to miss tonight's game in Chicago due to a health issue," Tirico said in a statement released by NBC. "I look forward to watching tonight and can't wait to be back with Cris [Collinsworth], Melissa [Stark] and the rest of our SNF team next Sunday night in Cincinnati."
Social media flooded Tirico with well wishes after the announcement.
"No real reason to watch now. Heal up, Mike! We'll see you next week," one user wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
"Damn, that's tough. Bro was gonna be electric tonight. Hope he's all good," a second user chimed in.
"Man, I didn't know how much of a difference he made. I mean, I'm used to his voice, but holy s**t," a third user reacted.
Noah Eagles Talks Following In His Father's Footsteps
Tirico was replaced by rising broadcaster Noah Eagle. Noah is the son of sports broadcasting legend Ian Eagle. With his dad having a broadcasting career that has spanned over three decades, you would think that Noah has always planned for this career path. But he says that is not the case.
"I would say about [age] 13 was when I latched onto it. Before that, people would ask what I wanted to do. And the answer was very simple. I wanted to be a TV dentist, which is not a real thing," he said in an interview with GQ.
"So 13 or so, I had seen what [my dad] had done obviously. I saw how much joy it brought him. I saw every day how excited he was to prepare for games, to go to the events, to work with cool people, to be around the action. When you see that, and you've got a good relationship with a parent, it becomes easier to really become magnetized to it. That's what happened for me."
Tirico plans to be back in the booth for Week 10. When the Sunday Night Football crew travels to Cincinnati for the AFC North clash between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals
