FOX football broadcaster Kenny Albert stated that he wouldn’t be surprised if the Detroit Lions make it to Super Bowl 59, which will be aired by FOX Sports from the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on February 9.
“The Lions are in the driver’s seat,” Albert remarked on The Detroit News/Detroit Red Wings podcast, OctoPulse. “They’ve got the bye, the No. 1 seed, and they need just two more home wins, which obviously won’t be easy because there are some other terrific teams out there.”
Reflecting on last year’s championship game, Albert shared, “Last year, watching that championship game, you just felt for them, having such a big lead at halftime and then the 49ers coming back to win that game. I think a lot of the country was pulling for the Lions because they’ve been the underdog for so long. We’ll see what transpires over this next month but it’s certainly been a great story and fun to watch.”
Albert also expressed being “very impressed” by the Lions’ 31-9 win over the Vikings on Sunday night, though he was in Los Angeles calling the Rams-Seahawks game. “I thought the score could’ve been a lot closer than what the final turned out to be,” he said. “Minnesota had a lot of missed opportunities in the red zone instead of touchdowns, a missed field goal, going for it on fourth down.”
Having worked the Lions-Bears game in Chicago three weeks ago, Albert credits head coach Dan Campbell for the team’s remarkable turnaround from a 3-13-1 record in 2021 to a 15-2 record this year. “When you look at what he’s (Campbell) done with unbelievable coordinators, Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn, and when they made the trade (Matthew) Stafford for (Jared) Goff, Stafford goes on to win a Super Bowl but now Goff has turned into one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL,” Albert said.
“He has unbelievable talent in the skill positions, the offensive line, the defense has been tremendous. It’s been so neat to watch the transformation. It wasn’t that long ago when the Lions went winless over the course of an entire season.”
Albert also shared a story about Campbell’s leadership from the Lions-Bears game, with input from his color analyst, Jonathan Vilma, a former teammate of Campbell’s. “Right from that first press conference, he’s the alpha male in the room, he’s the leader,” Albert recalled. “I heard that an NFL head coach once asked another NFL head coach about Dan, whether they should bring him in. His response was, ‘You will not have any problem within the locker room if you bring in Dan Campbell.’”
Super Bowl LVII last year attracted a record-breaking 127.3 million average viewers, making it the largest TV audience in history. This year, Tom Brady and Kevin Burkhardt will lead the FOX broadcast team. The top 100 live TV events from last year featured 93 NFL games.
“Sports is the best reality television in my mind,” Albert said. “The NFL is so big. With the NFL, it’s year-round, from week 1 in September, so many eyeballs. Football is just so popular when you’re in the arena. There’s nothing like 1 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon when we’re up in the booth and they’re about to kick off.”
