What Happened to Cris Collinsworth? Why He Was Missing From 'Sunday Night Football'

The Gist:

• Cris Collinsworth was missing from Sunday Night Football on Nov. 26, 2023.
• Per reports, he had the rest of long weekend off after he commentated the 49ers-Seahawks game on Thanksgiving Day.
• He'll return for Week 13 when the Packers play the Chiefs on Dec. 3, 2023.

Sunday Night Football viewers were left wondering where Cris Collinsworth went when he was absent from the broadcast on Nov. 26, 2023, during the NFL game between the Chargers and the Ravens.

So where was Cris Collinsworth, and when is he returning to Sunday Night Football? Here's everything to know.

While Cris was there for the Thanksgiving Day game between the 49ers and the Seahawks, he then took the rest of the long weekend to be with his family.

Cris will return for the Packers-Chiefs game on Dec. 3, 2023.

Jason Garrett filled in for Cris during the Chargers-Ravens game on Nov. 26, 2023, though not everyone was thrilled with his commentating style. Some social media users slammed Jason for apparently laughing too much.

Cris made headlines in September 2022 because of a juicy detail from Dick Ebersol’s memoir, From Saturday Night to Sunday Night: My Forty Years of Laughter, Tears, and Touchdowns in TV, which had been published that month.

Dick, once hailed as “The Most Powerful Person in Sports,” is the former president of NBC Sports — and, incidentally, a co-creator of Saturday Night Live — and he’s a member of the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame. And in his book, he had an interesting story to tell about Cris.

In From Saturday Night to Sunday Night, Dick wrote that he nearly had Cris — a former wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals — be the play-by-play announcer for NBC football coverage in 2006.

As Dick recalled (per Pro Football Talk), he had already gotten color commentator John Madden, producer Fred Gaudelli, and director Drew Esocoff from ABC’s Monday Night Football to come work on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. He just needed a play-by-play announcer to pair with John, and “there weren’t any young up-and-comers” from which to choose.

So he tapped Cris, who was then working in Football Night in America, to “begin a crash course in learning how to be a play-by-play announcer.”

Even though Cris thought Dick had “lost [his] mind,” he gave the play-by-play role the ol’ college try. He practiced alongside Merril Hoge, and then worked with Madden during a Patriots-Broncos playoff game in January 2006. But in the midst of that game, Dick found out that ABC/ESPN was willing to let Al out of his contract. So Dick snapped up Al, and Cris ended his brief run as play-by-play announcer. And then, in 2009, Cris became Sunday Night Football’s color commentator after John retired.

After Pro Football Talk reported on that anecdote from Dick’s book, social media users expressed their relief that Cris and John never teamed up as play-by-play announcer as color commentator, respectively.

“This would’ve been terrible,” one person tweeted.

“Dodged a bullet there,” another wrote.

And a third person tweeted, “What a horror show that would have been.”

Yes, the shade is real when it comes to Sunday Night Football fans, although one Twitter user at least gave Cris faint praise: “I honestly think Cris is a pretty good second voice, but he would have been a disaster as a play-by-play.”