Luke Kuechly to make CBS game analyst debut in Week 3

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Luke Kuechly spent his playing career making sure he never had to guess where the ball was going. But these days, the harder question is guessing which network has him next.

CBS announced Monday that the newly enshrined Pro Football Hall of Famer will make his debut as a CBS game analyst in Week 3, calling Raiders-Saints from New Orleans alongside play-by-play voice Chris Lewis and sideline reporter Amanda Balionis.

NEW: CBS has announced its Week 2 and Week 3 announce schedule. J.J. Watt remains on the No. 1 team. Tony Romo is not listed. https://t.co/Bs6hE3JXPJ

A radio analyst for the Carolina Panthers, Kuechly’s stock skyrocketed in recent months as he became Netflix’s top NFL game analyst after auditioning with Noah Eagle at NBC’s Stamford, Connecticut studios in early July. Eagle said Kuechly’s football knowledge was never in question — that much was obvious from his playing days — but what stood out during their audition, a mock call of a game from the previous season, was how quickly he got comfortable in the chair given he’d never done the job before. Eagle told Sports Media Watch that it felt like Kuechly “could see things happening before they happen.”

He justified that faith in his Week 1 debut, as Awful Announcing’s Megan Armstrong wrote that he dazzled alongside Eagle in Melbourne, with the reaction across sports media running overwhelmingly positive.

The streamer is expanding its NFL package from two games to five this year, including the opening-week matchup in Australia, a Thanksgiving Eve game, and a Saturday night game in Week 18, and Kuechly is expected to anchor most of that slate. Between Netflix and his new CBS assignments, he’s on pace to call somewhere in the range of eight to 10 games as a game analyst this season, on top of his usual Sunday work as a Panthers radio analyst. Kuechly is also replacing Bill Belichick opposite Peyton Manning on The Breakdown.