Tony Romo’s CBS Microphone Fails in First Quarter of Super Bowl LIII

Former Dallas Cowboys QB was silenced there for a bit

Tony Romo - CBS
CBS

CBS has already suffered a few technical issues in and around its Super Bowl LIII coverage. For example, about 10 (football) minutes into the first quarter, color commentator-extraordinaire Tony Romo lost the use of his microphone.

After not hearing from the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback for a little bit, viewers got the following explanation out of Jim Nantz’s broadcasting partner:

“Well, my mic works again, so I can talk,” Romo said on a thankfully hot mic. “This works out perfect. I was saying such good stuff on that play earlier, Jim. It was fantastic.”

We’ll never know what play-predicting brilliance the 100 million-plus of us missed out on. But Romo’s really good at the the gig, so we’ll take him at his word.

Romo’s mic cut off with 5:52 remaining in the big game’s opening quarter. He got it back with 4:14 left. So, it wasn’t too bad — or at least, not too long a drought.

When reached by TheWrap, CBS Sports did not have a comment on what went wrong there. A person with knowledge of the production shrugged the lost 98 seconds-or-so as a “small issue” with Romo’s headset.

Romo switched to a back-up pretty swiftly. In the interim, Nantz did a halftime promo.

Hey, they’re pros.

The first quarter ended with no score, which was unexpected given the explosiveness of these two high-powered offenses.

Super Bowl LIII is in Atlanta, Georgia, the home of the NFC South Falcons.

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