Here’s Why Kenny Albert and Jonathan Vilma’s Call of That Wild Patriots-Raiders Ending Was Perfect
1. What I love about the call from Fox’s Kenny Albert and Jonathan Vilma on the nobody-can-believe-it-still final play of Sunday’s Patriots-Raiders game is that it wasn’t a ”good” call from a technical standpoint.
The call was messy with the announcers speaking over each other, but I mean that 100% as a compliment. That play deserved a messy call. That play deserved nothing but emotion from the booth.
The cliché “all hell broke loose” is overused, but as soon as New England running back Rhamondre Stevenson decided to lateral to teammate Jakobi Meyers, all hell did break loose, and Albert and Vilma gave us an “all hell broke loose” call.
Vilma’s “UH-OH” as Chandler Jones picked off the ball was perfect. His second “UH-OH” after Chandler Jones destroyed Mac Jones, who tried to make a tackle, was perfect. His, “OH NO” as Chandler Jones headed to the end zone was perfect. And his “OH WOW” to finish off the play was perfect.
Sometimes, fancy words and a technical breakdown are needed by analysts. But in this case, all Vilma gave us was two “UH-OHs,” an “OH NO” and an “OH WOW.” Those are barely even words, yet it made for an outstanding call.
While Vilma was expressing his disbelief at what he was seeing, Albert did the same while tossing in a little play-by-play
“It’s picked off! Unbelievable! Incredible! Chandler Jones takes it in and WINS THE GAME FOR THE RAIDERS!”
Albert then stayed silent for eight seconds to let the picture tell the story.
Kudos to Albert and Vlima for enhancing what we were seeing, but not believing, on our screens in the wildest moment of the NFL season.
2. Here is the Patriots’ local radio call of the play. Make sure you stay until the end for some solid analysis of New England.
Here is the Raiders’ local radio call, featuring some amazing voice cracks and a Hanukkah reference.
3. A Tom Brady–led team is finally having a bad season, and because of that, every week there are new eye-opening stats about the future Hall of Famer. Yesterday the Bucs blew a 17–0 lead before losing to the Bengals, 34–23.
4. This was a first. On Saturday, Grizzlies star Ja Morant was ejected because the refs thought he was arguing with fans. Instead, he was just having a conversation with the fans. So after he got booted, Morant FaceTimed the fans to let them know all was good. Unreal.
5. This was some conversation between Cardinals teammates J.J. Watt and Zach Allen. Props to Allen for giving Watt a hard time about being so rich.
6. The newest SI Media Podcast features three segments.
The show begins with a conversation with Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim about longtime colleague Grant Wahl, who tragically died at 49 while covering the World Cup. Wertheim talks about Wahl's love of soccer, his rise at SI and the kind of person Grant was.
Following Wertheim, Greg Olsen from Fox Sports joins the podcast to talk about his first year as the network’s lead NFL analyst, what it’s like having Tom Brady waiting in the wings to take his job, what he said to Brady when he saw him earlier this season, what he’d like to improve about his broadcasts, his partnership with Kevin Burkhardt and much more.
Following Olsen, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York joins me for our weekly "Traina Thoughts" segment. This week, we weigh in on a couple of fantastic Bill Belichick stories, Twitter's new checkmark system and the stress of holiday tipping.
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.
You can also watch the SI Media Podcast on YouTube.
7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Anyone who has ever had to deal with an internet troll will want to watch this video.
Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
