Marv Albert has decided the time is right to give up football play-by-play. The voice of Monday Night Football and the Super Bowl on Westwood One radio, the Marvelous one has decided to give up the post.
Marv and Boomer Esiason were a nice listen but Albert has decided to cut back and concentrate on his basketball duties, where he is the unquestioned Voice of the NBA (even if he doesn't get to call the NBA Finals anymore). Esiason will continue on in the role.
So the big question is: who should take Marv's place? In the past couple of years, Westwood One has used the likes of Kevin Harlan, Dave Sims, Dick Enberg, Ian Eagle and Larry Kahn on NFL games. You can pretty much forget about Enberg. He wants to do baseball full-time and at his age, he would be a short-term guy and Westwood One needs to hire someone more long-term. Forget about Kahn too since his name recognition is low. Also, you may as well forget about Joe Buck and Jim Nantz, since they are the faces of their networks and probably wouldn't want to do it anyway. Besides, Buck would be unavailable for Mondays in October because of baseball's postseason and neither could call the Super Bowl for Westwood One when their network is covering the game; Buck will already be calling the next Super Bowl for Fox Sports.
That leaves Harlan, Sims and Eagle as logical in-house candidates and Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is stumping for Harlan, who does the Packers preseason games and whose father Bob was once the CEO of the Packers.
Harlan does a nice job on lower-tier CBS telecasts with Solomon Wilcots and I enjoy him calling NBA games for TNT and March Madness games for CBS. Still, he would be my second choice. My top choice? Marv's son, Fox's Kenny Albert.
Kenny Albert has steadily rose up the charts in recent years and is now Fox's No. 2 NFL announcer, working with Daryl Johnston and Tony Siragusa. He also seems to have ascended to their No. 2 baseball role, usually working with Tim McCarver when Buck decides he cannot be bothered to call a game. He also is NBC's No. 2 hockey announcer during the Olympics and he and Joe Micheletti did an outstanding job on the games NBC deemed lesser profile. He also calls New York Rangers and New York Knicks games for MSG.
That sounds like quite a full plate. It also sounds like a guy who likes to work and who wouldn't want to be able to call the Super Bowl? Clearly, that isn't going to happen at Fox anytime soon, where Buck is the clear No. 1 voice. Kenny Albert isn't much of an entertainer in the booth but that also makes him ideal for radio, where the description of the action is paramount. He also works really well with analysts, something he clearly inherited from his father who is probably the best ever at bringing the most out of his analysts.
The only possible drawback is that Kenny Albert probably would be unavailable to call a divisional playoff game for Westwood One because of his Fox job but that seems like a minor inconvenience to me. Use Harlan, Eagle, Sims and Kahn on the divisional games. Have Harlan and Kenny Albert call the wild card and conference championship games and give Kenny Albert Monday Night Football and the Super Bowl. Sounds like a plan to me.
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