JJ Watt Named CBS Sports' Lead NFL Analyst
JJ Watt has been named the new lead NFL analyst for CBS Sports, according to Variety. The former Houston Texans and Arizona Cardinals defensive star takes over the job from Tony Romo. The lead analyst is the expert colour voice who sits beside the play-by-play caller during the network's biggest games.
Watt will call CBS's top NFL games alongside Jim Nantz and Tracy Wolfson. CBS will also telecast Super Bowl LXII from Atlanta next season, with Watt on its lead broadcast team for that game.
Watt's climb at the network has been steady. He joined CBS Sports in 2023 as a studio analyst on The NFL Today, the network's long-running pre-game show. In March 2025, CBS announced he would move into the game booth as an NFL on CBS game analyst. Last season he called games with Ian Eagle and Evan Washburn.
This season he moved up another step. When the 2026 season began, Watt started calling games with Nantz and Wolfson while filling in for Romo.
Romo's time at the top of the booth ended in early October. CBS Sports and Romo mutually parted ways on October 2, 2026, according to CBS Sports and Reuters. Romo had pleaded no contest in September to a charge of operating while intoxicated. That charge followed a July incident in Milwaukee. A no contest plea means he did not fight the charge in court.
Watt's football career gives him a strong record to talk from. He is a three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, and he was the 2017 Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year, an award for community work as well as play. He is also the only player in NFL history to record multiple seasons with at least 20 sacks, a sack being a tackle of the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage.
For viewers, the change is simple. The same lead voices of CBS's top games stay in place, and the seat next to Nantz and Wolfson now belongs to Watt. For the people who make the broadcasts, a lead analyst role means long weeks of preparation, travel and live work on the biggest Sunday games of the season.
