Rating the FOX announcers for Vikings-Bears
Kevin Kugler, Daryl Johnston and sideline reporter Laura Okmin will have the call at noon Sunday on FOX.
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: Kevin Kugler and Daryl Johnston will have the call at noon Sunday on FOX. Laura Okmin will be the sideline reporter.
Rating the duo: 5 on a scale of 1-10.
Why that rating? For the second consecutive week, a network has assigned its fifth NFL team to a Vikings game. Last Sunday, CBS put Spero Dedes and Adam Archuleta on Vikings-Titans because Tennessee is bad. This Sunday, FOX has assigned Kugler and Johnston to Vikings-Bears at Soldier Field because, well, the Bears are a mess.
There was a time when this game would have gotten one of FOX’s top teams. The Bears were 4-2 and about to beat Washington on Oct. 27 before Chicago allowed a Hail Mary touchdown pass that gave the Commanders the win. That started a four-game losing streak and the Bears are now 4-6.
I gave Dedes and Archuleta a 4 rating last week and that proved to be fair given their performance in the booth. Kugler and Johnston — like Dedes and Archuleta at CBS — are the No. 5 pairing on FOX’s seven-announcer team depth chart.
Longtime NFL fans will remember Johnston from his 11-year career (1989 to 1999) as a fullback with the Dallas Cowboys.
Johnston worked with Joe Davis on FOX’s No. 2 crew as recently as last season, but was demoted for 2024. That was done in part to the juggling that saw Greg Olsen move to the second pairing with Davis and Tom Brady take over as the top analyst with Kevin Burkhardt.
The versatile Kugler has been calling NFL games for FOX since 2020 and was the voice of Sunday Night Football on Westwood One radio from 2013 to 2019.
This is probably damning with faint praise, but Kugler and Johnston should be a step up from what Vikings fans watched and heard last Sunday.