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J.J. Watt's 70s Throwback Look for Steelers-Patriots Led to Many Jokes From NFL World

Liam McKeone

J.J. Watt and Ian Eagle dressed up for a CBS anniversary celebration.
J.J. Watt and Ian Eagle dressed up for a CBS anniversary celebration. / CBS
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Sunday marked a big slate of NFL games in Week 3 of the 2025 season. It was also a milestone for the NFL on CBS. It's been 50 years to the day since The NFL Today debuted on the network, and the network went all-out in celebrating the occasion.

The most obvious way they did so was to have all the CBS announcers and studio talent dress up like they were in the 1970s. It made for a tremendously entertaining pregame show. It also led to many jokes, particularly about J.J. Watt, who looked very natural donning 70s-style glasses and facial hair for the Patriots-Steelers broadcast alongside Ian Eagle.

Here's the reveal of the pair's tremendous look:

It naturally inspired plenty of cracks. Watt was compared to Napoleon Dynamite and Bill Lumbergh, among others.

For his part Watt was more than happy to lean into the jokes, quoting Office Space in response to a Lumbergh comparison.

"Did you get that memo about the cover sheets on the TPS report?" Watt tweeted as he prepared for the afternoon's broadcast.

What a great idea from CBS.

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Liam McKeone
LIAM MCKEONE

Liam McKeone is a senior writer for the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has been in the industry as a content creator since 2017, and prior to joining SI in May 2024, McKeone worked for NBC Sports Boston and The Big Lead. In addition to his work as a writer, he has hosted the Press Pass Podcast covering sports media and The Big Stream covering pop culture. A graduate of Fordham University, he is always up for a good debate and enjoys loudly arguing about sports, rap music, books and video games. McKeone has been a member of the National Sports Media Association since 2020.

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