Rating the CBS announcers for Vikings-Titans

Spero Dedes, Adam Archuleta and sideline reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala will have the call at noon Sunday on CBS.

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Having covered the sports TV-radio beat for the Star Tribune for eight years, I found there was plenty of interest in that side of the business.

We tune into games to watch the action, but the viewing experience either can be enhanced or diminished by those describing what is going on.

Thus, each week I’m providing a brief analysis of who will be in the booth to call the Vikings’ game and whether the assignment is a good or bad one.

Network and broadcast team: Spero Dedes and Adam Archuleta will have the call at noon Sunday on CBS. Aditi Kinkhabwala will be the sideline reporter.

Rating the duo: 4 on a scale of 1-10.

Why that rating? Dedes and Archuleta are the fifth NFL announcer pairing on CBS’ six-team depth chart. That makes them the lowest-ranked broadcast team a network has assigned to the Vikings this season. The previous low came in Week 1 when FOX had its No. 4 pairing of Kenny Albert and Jonathan Vilma call the Vikings’ victory over the New York Giants.

Awful Announcing’s yearly NFL announcer rankings had Dedes-Archuleta 15th out of the 17 broadcast teams it ranked last season. In 2022, Dedes and his previous on-air partner, Jay Feely, were 16th and Greg Gumbel and Archuleta were 13th. Archuleta, 46, played seven NFL seasons as a safety for St. Louis, Washington and Chicago.

The issue isn’t the Vikings, it’s the fact they will be playing the 2-7 Tennessee Titans. That’s good news for those hoping for a Vikings victory, but not for those looking for a top-notch telecast that will be shown to much of the country. This game also figures to have a minimal amount of cameras available, so don’t count on any spectacular replay looks.

The Vikings will end their three-game trip against Chicago (4-5) on Nov. 24 at Soldier Field, so it will be interesting to see which of its teams FOX sends to that game. The other FOX games that day will be Detroit at Indianapolis, Dallas at Washington, San Francisco at Green Bay and Arizona at Seattle. The network’s top team of Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady almost certainly will go to Packers-49ers. I’m betting on the Albert-Vilma duo getting the Vikings-Bears.