Cris Collinsworth Gives Pardon My Take a Lesson on What Makes His Legendary Slide Work So Well

To open up SPORTS WEEK on Pardon My Take, Mr. Cat and Mr. Commenter welcomed on one of the voices of NBC's Sunday Night Football, Cris Collinsworth. The former Florida Gator discussed working with Al Michaels, PFF, how he grades players, the 2020 NFL season, and more. Of course, there is no interview with Cris Collinsworth without diving into his epic slide-in that takes place at the top of every broadcast. In fact, he also gave us a behind-the-scenes look as to how the "opposite" slide went down a couple of years ago, too.

Mr. Commenter: Do you find that you have to wear a certain type of pant to be able to execute the slide? Like, does it work in jeans, or is the friction too much?

Cris Collinsworth: Well, you gotta be careful because it's sort of like, you know, if you over slide, then people think you're strange with Al, right? That's not good because, you know, Al's the legend. And if I smash into him or something, they get mad. So I can't do that. Under sliding is a problem, too. You can't under slide because then you've got half your head out of it [the frame]. So, yeah, it's the kind of traction that you get with with your pants. Yeah, it's significant. 

Mr. Commenter: And then after it became a big thing on the Internet, you reversed it, you flipped it on everybody and you came in from the other side. 

Cris Collinsworth: Ahhh, you saw that!

Mr. Commenter: Nobody saw that coming!

Cris Collinsworth: I love that you actually saw that. 

Mr. Commenter: Oh yeah, it was a big deal. We pay so much attention to the stupid parts of sports, to me, that made my week, when you slid in from the other side of the camera. When you were about to do that, did you have like a little bit of nerves and jitters? Like, "I don't know if I can execute from this side. Am I ambi-sliderous? I don't know."

Cris Collinsworth: Actually, there was, but the debate raged that week. So, Fred Gaudelli is our producer. You guys made it a deal! I never knew this. I'm learning something new on the show.  

Mr. Cat: You know a lot of people watch Sunday Night Football, right?

Cris Collinsworth: I heard that, yeah. And so, Fred Gaudelli said, "Hey, this week,..." and I think we were in somewhere in California. One of those stadiums that had a really small booth. I mean, there was like no room to do anything. And so, he said, "It's just a little wink and a nod to you guys, who made this thing up. We're just going to have some fun with it." They were going to have... "Cris, slide on in" and have Al look the wrong way. And then I was like, "No, no. The internet is so much cooler than we are. You can't do that. If you want to do something, I'll do it from the other side, but it's got to be totally straight. We can't let on that we know, because then it won't be fun anymore. Like there's got to be some level of doubt that we're just a couple guys that have no idea that people are making fun of us, right? And that's the only way it survives anything beyond this. And so we decide to do it. And it was hilarious because people like that, better than pretty much anything I've done in my career. So, thank you, thank you.

It is the little things that we love so much about football. We can only hope that in just seven short weeks, we get the Texans and Chiefs on September 10th with Al and Cris on our screens. We need it. We need it so badly.