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Charles Davis Q&A: On Steelers-Bengals, calling NFL games without playing in the NFL and more

Each week during the football season, we will interview a different broadcaster. The goal is for readers to gain insight into how NFL and college football broadcasters approach what they do, along with some questions tied to the game or assignment they are charged with that week. Our 11th Q&A subject is CBS NFL analyst Charles Davis, who will call the Cincinnati Bengals vs. Pittsburgh Steelers game this Sunday with Ian Eagle and Evan Washburn.

Previous weeks have featured Fox’s Greg Olsen, Pam Oliver and Jay Glazer; Amazon’s Al Michaels; CBS and Westwood One Audio’s Kevin Harlan; CBS’ Gene Steratore; ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky; NBC’s Melissa Stark; the NFL Network’s Rich Eisen, and ESPN/ABC’s Joe Buck.

Your broadcast with Ian Eagle uses a healthy amount of humor. How do you see humor as part of an NFL broadcast?

I see it as part of what a lot of people watching at home are doing as well. Sometimes when people are their angriest with their team, they find humor in something to kind of diffuse things, maybe bring them back a little bit. There’s a joy to it because what we’re doing is just fun. If my 7-year-old self could see me now, my 7-year-old self would be laughing and going, “Wow, that’s pretty cool.” A lot of it is that (Eagle) is so smart, so sharp, so quick. But he also is not taking shots at people. He’s not making anything personal. He’s just enjoying it. He says a lot of things where I think, I wish I thought of that.

Your favorite duo is back at it again 😉@PatrickMahomes x @TKelce pic.twitter.com/7MdgHozbcV

— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) September 17, 2023

This is the third week in a row your crew is calling the Steelers. How does that impact your preparation?

Well, the obvious is you should know the roster pretty well because the roster is not going to undergo a complete overhaul in three weeks. Whoever goes in and out is pretty obvious, right? So you’re able to zero in on that. Talking with the coach, you’re probably more pointed in what you’re asking because you covered the general stuff. So with (Steelers coach) Mike Tomlin you might say, “OK, we’ve had you two weeks in a row now, what are you carrying with you from those weeks that you apply to this one?” I think it allows you to be more focused and hopefully cut down the amount of time you’re taking from these people, whether it’s the head coach, the quarterback or whatever player you’re talking with. Now, if you are talking to players you have not talked to before, you probably need to flesh some things out. But three weeks in a row doesn’t happen very often.

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Years ago, I was on a crew that had the Seattle Seahawks four straight times. As a normal rule, the week you’re heading into a game, you’ll find out about your next game. As the season goes on, depending on the schedule, and the potential for flex, sometimes assignments get delayed. Sometimes they (management) wait it out rather than give you an assignment that might be changed.

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What is the toughest position group for you to evaluate?

It’s almost always offensive linemen. We can evaluate the open-field block, the guy that pulls, you see the motion, he comes down the line, and he seals or kicks out. If he pancaked someone, that part’s easy. But positioning, climbing, the double teams, the subtle nuances, that gets a little more difficult. With linemen, there are just so many bodies in there. Big people. I love it when they pull. They get out in front and they climb. That’s better because now in space, it’s a lot (easier) to evaluate.

How did playing safety in college at Tennessee help or hurt you regarding how you see the field as a broadcaster?

In a lot of cases, I will call the game from that perspective because that’s where my eye goes in order to evaluate personnel, formation, down-and-distance, expectation. That’s how I am getting ready for the play. That’s how it helps me. How it hurts me is that I’m calling it from a perspective of a safety that finished playing college football in 1986 and it is 2023. The safeties play a lot differently.

If I gave you the opportunity to call or be part of the broadcast of one sporting event outside football, what would you choose and why?

I would love to be the analyst of the Olympic gold medal game in basketball. That would be so much fun. I’m the son of a basketball coach. I played basketball in high school, and I had opportunities to play basketball at some different places, but I chose football. I worked for the U.S. Olympic Committee, and I have that little bit of a tie. I was in Barcelona for the Dream Team (in 1992). I was working for the Olympic Committee, and when my assignment was over, I was able to go to the semifinal and final in Barcelona. I’ll never forget the ball going in the air for the opening tip, and this was back before cell phones were big, there were all these flashes going off from cameras.

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How much pride do you take that you’re one of only a handful of NFL analysts who has called NFL games at a network level that did not play or coach in the NFL?

It’s huge. It’s something I have thought about over the years. I never thought I’d be an NFL analyst. Howard Cosell will be the patron saint of them forever. Never played. Wasn’t that the title of his book? “I Never Played The Game.” But he’s the patron saint of them all because Howard did it at the highest level in football and baseball. I mean, think about that. He was doing World Series and “Monday Night Football” as an analyst. He broke the mold. Dennis Miller, Tony Kornheiser, those felt more like, “We are going to do something different for the audience.” I’ve read comments from Al Michaels saying if Dennis Miller had stayed true to being just Dennis Miller, he would have been a huge success at it. Instead, he unfortunately felt the pressure of showing how much football he knew. … Tony Kornheiser was one of the great sports writers and has been doing a monster show with Mike Wilbon forever. I think it’s just me and Kirk Herbstreit right now in terms of the NFL.

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I remember the first NFL game I did was Philadelphia-Carolina. After our production meeting, I pulled (then Eagles’) coach (Andy) Reid aside. I knew him a little bit. I gave him my background and said, “Am I going to be OK in this league, or are people going to be like, ‘What are you doing here?'” He said to me, “Charles if you know what you’re doing, you’re going to be fine. If you don’t, you won’t be. Have a nice day.” I reminded him about that conversation this year. I told him it gave me focus on if you’re up to the task, you’ve got a shot. If you’re not, they’ll let you know. I feel like this is a gift, and I better honor the gift.

You have an undergraduate political science degree and a master’s degree in history. Why did you want to pursue history in grad school, and is there a certain timeframe in history that is particularly interesting to you?

I wanted to pursue it for a couple of reasons. My father is a retired schoolteacher and he also has a master’s in history. So I think I got my bent for history from him. I had a professor who was my advisor at college, Dr. William Bruce Wheeler and he had a tremendous effect on me, and in many ways, I wanted to be him and follow in his footsteps. I graduated in four years, and I had a fifth year to play ball. You had to have nine hours in graduate school to be eligible. …

I would love to be able to be back in the 1960s and be able to alter history because the ’60s were so tumultuous, so much division, but so much promise for this country. The idea of what family members and other people who look like me went through during that timeframe, yet still kept forging forward and finding ways to have an impact. Make it better. It seems like it’d be crazy to go back there and deal with some of the horrific stuff we saw, but boy, if I could go back and have some kind of mystical power and have people see people the way we should see each other, that was a great timeframe.

How many younger NFL fans, at least anecdotally, know you more from being one of the voices of “Madden Football” than your broadcast work?

Anecdotally, a lot more. There are very few NFL guys (who) know I do it, but there have been two or three players who walked up to me or in a meeting and said, “Hey! ‘Madden.'” There was also one who said, “Hold on a second, I know that voice.” That was (Philadelphia Eagles quarterback) Jalen Hurts. When I got the job, my son was in high school, and that’s the best reaction I’ve ever gotten to getting a job. I had done BCS games, NFL games, I’d done a few things. I’d been fortunate. But when I told him about “Madden,” he gave me the biggest hug, ran to the phone to call his boys, and the house was flooded with his guys for days after that. The most street cred I’ve gotten was getting that gig.

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Previous Q&As

• Greg Olsen: On Tom Brady and his future at Fox, Jordan Love, Justin Fields and more

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• Al Michaels: On criticism, dinner with John Madden, working with Kyle Shanahan

• Kevin Harlan: On his Super Bowl streak, his Buck family bond and the speedy Dolphins

• Pam Oliver: On broadcasting longevity, what her job is like, the joy of Eagles fans and more

• Gene Steratore: On how an NFL rules analyst operates, staying current on rules and more

• Dan Orlovsky: On ESPN, watching every NFL game, and the viral video that started it all

• Melissa Stark: On the art of on-field questions, Eagles fans and Taylor Swift

• Rich Eisen: On Chiefs-Dolphins, doing play-by-play, and an alternate reality at Turner

• Jay Glazer: On his 3,912 phone contacts, how he does his job and battling anxiety

Joe Buck: On Eagles-Chiefs, 22 years with Troy Aikman, and covering Taylor Swift

(Photo: Peter Aiken / Associated Press)

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