If Collinsworth takes the job, it would seem NBC would want him to learn the play-by-play role and simultaneously diminish some of it if the notion of this new paradigm of two big-name analysts talkin' is to take hold.
Collinsworth would have to do all this in prime time even as he and Madden try to forge a rapport and pursue their conversation about the game before them and those that were played earlier that day.
Being a leading analyst, while not easy, has fewer moving parts than play-by-play. Generally, the analyst speaks during the breaks between plays, assessing strategy, picking apart replays and wielding a Telestrator stylus.
There is risk in all this: Taking Collinsworth from the studio would weaken that program (there are no comparable replacements) and if his transformation in the booth were not smooth and rapid, the Sunday evening broadcast, which Ebersol sees as the successor to Monday Night, might stumble. How well Collinsworth balances his characteristic pungency -- a trait that would be a shame to lose -- with his play-by-play learning curve would be a crucial element in the pair's success.
Madden is savvy enough about television, and his image as a performer, to know that working with Collinsworth would be a fitting third act in a career that flourished with the terse and wry Summerall then advanced easily to the loquacious Michaels, who long ago became a part-time analyst. Working with Collinsworth would be a challenge worth embracing.
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