Total: 25/40

8) Drew Brees

Network: FOX Partner: Adam Amin

Drew Brees is destined for the Hall of Fame as a player, but that didn’t initially translate to the broadcast booth. He had a short and ill-fated stint at NBC, but made a shock return with FOX last year when Mark Sanchez was stabbed and subsequently arrested.

He still has work to do, but Brees was much improved. He no doubt brings star power and a wealth of knowledge, but his popularity as a broadcaster is yet to take off, with his delivery sometimes flat compared to other voices. His chemistry with Adam Amin is still developing, with some awkward pauses as Brees gets to grips with his role, but improving all the time and potentially primed to continue rising from his current spot on the third-string FOX team.

Ratings: Star power 8/10, Knowledge 8/10, Popularity 4/10, Chemistry 5/10

Total: 25/40

7) Tony Romo

Network: CBS Partner: Jim Nantz 

Tony Romo was the latest big-name quarterback to be tempted into the booth by a big deal after retirement, and unlike Brady, he hit the ground running. Romo earned rave reviews in his first year alongside Jim Nantz in 2017.

The former Cowboys quarterback was widely praised for his ability to call plays before they happened, often being teed up expertly by Nantz to outline exactly what was about to happen before it actually unfolded.

But as time has passed, the novelty has worn off. Romo has faced criticism for going off on tangents or telling confusing stories during games, or simply talking too much with his chemistry with Nantz seeming to get worse rather than better.

This offseason he’s become embroiled in scandal after his DWI arrest saw him stood down indefinitely by CBS, and while he says he intends to return, his future appears unclear. While his star power and knowledge cannot be questioned, his popularity is at a low point, while he’s also left Nantz to prepare for a new partner just weeks before the season.

Ratings: Star power 8/10, Knowledge 9/10, Popularity 2/10, Chemistry 6/10

Total: 25/40

6) Greg Olsen

Network: FOX Partner: Joe Davis 

Olsen was already preparing for his broadcast career as his playing days wound down, and the tight end slotted right into the picture seamlessly at FOX. But just as he was hitting his stride, he was replaced by the star power of Tom Brady, a demotion he knew was coming while he was earning strong reviews in his final year on the A-team.

Since then, Olsen has continued to impress on the No.2 broadcast. But while Brady continues to improve, the path back to the top job seems blocked at FOX, leading to speculation he could be in-demand elsewhere.

Olsen’s popularity has skyrocketed as a result of fans being sympathetic of his plight, and it will be fascinating to see if he gets another opportunity to take his talents elsewhere as a No.1 analyst at another company.

Ratings: Star power 4/10, Knowledge 7/10, Popularity 9/10, Chemistry 6/10 

Total: 26/40

5) J.J. Watt

Network: CBS Partner: Jim Nantz

READ MORE: 9/11 Firefighter Survivor Delivers Stark Warning to America

Former Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt is being thrown into the deep end as the lead CBS analyst to replace Tony Romo at the start of the season after his arrest. At this stage, we don’t know how his chemistry with Jim Nantz will unfold.

But Watt enters the role as something of a rising star. He had a very impressive debut season on the No.2 team alongside Ian Eagle, knowing when to interject with his thoughts and clearly offering an abundance of research and thoughtfulness to his new role.

Watt is one of the most likeable players in recent NFL history, and he’s now got a big opportunity to stake his claim for his rapid rise to step up a notch with Romo’s future up in the air.

Ratings: Star power 7/10, Knowledge 7/10, Popularity 7/10, Chemistry 5/10 

Total: 26/40

4) Kirk Herbstreit

Network: Amazon Prime Video Partner: Al Michaels

There are not many busier men in the industry than Kirk Herbstreit, as he juggles his ESPN College GameDay role with partnering Al Michaels in the Amazon Prime Video Thursday Night Football booth. And what he lacks in terms of resume as a player – he started a year at Ohio State and never made the grade in the NFL – he makes up for in enthusiasm.

Alongside the ageing Al Michaels, 81, Herbstreit brings much of the energy to the Prime Video broadcast. He’s become excellent at breaking the game down and offering natural insight into what is happening on the field.

He’s a safe pair of hands and an experienced operator on the call known for his calm, measured approach, even if he is possibly more at home in his college football capacity.

Ratings: Star power 4/10, Knowledge 9/10, Popularity 6/10, Chemistry 8/10 

Total: 27/40

3) Cris Collinsworth

Network: NBC Partner: Mike Tirico 

Collinsworth might not have had a playing career to match Brady or Aikman. But these days, he’s known more as a broadcaster and his chemistry with Mike Tirico on the NBC A-team is the reason why.

Yes, he has his fair share of critics for his well-documented love of Patrick Mahomes. But his voice has become synonymous with Sunday Night Football and some of the NFL’s most memorable moments.

What he lacks in star power compared to other play-by-play commentators, he makes up for in his enthusiasm and engaging delivery.

Ratings: Star power 5/10, Knowledge 8/10, Popularity 7/10, Chemistry 9/10 

Total: 29/40

2) Tom Brady

Network: FOX Partner: Kevin Burkhardt 

All eyes were on Tom Brady, the biggest star in the NFL, when he stepped into the broadcast booth in a $375 million FOX deal after taking a year sabbatical after retiring from playing.

It is fair to say he got off to a shaky start, with plenty of critics during his first season in the role. But Brady took a massive leap in 2025, and continues to build up an excellent relationship with his lead announcer, Kevin Burkhardt.

It is hard to look past the knowledge of the seven-time Super Bowl champion, and he continues to be more and more willing to share his insights on the Xs and Os and weave them into his commentary, rather than relying on cliches as he often did in his first year.

He’s not popular with all viewers, yet the ultra-competitive Brady is fast winning people around with his performances in the booth and proving people wrong – just like he did in his NFL career. But, Brady being Brady, only being the very best counts.

Ratings: Star power 10/10, Knowledge 9/10, Popularity 7/10, Chemistry 8/10

Total: 34/40

1) Troy Aikman

Network: ESPN on ABC Partner: Joe Buck

Troy Aikman has made just as much of a name for himself in the broadcast booth as he did on the field – and that is no mean feat. 

The three-time Super Bowl champion quarterback with the Dallas Cowboys jumped straight into his new role after retiring in 2000 and has been there alongside Joe Buck ever since.

The longest tenured play-by-play duo continue to be at the top of their game as the A-list pairing for ESPN on ABC, covering each Monday Night Football. This year, they’ll be back on the Super Bowl call for the first time since 2020.

Aikman and Buck’s chemistry has been honed over years of working together, and it doesn’t get much bigger in terms of star power than the quarterback of ‘America’s team.’ 

While the game has changed somewhat since his days playing quarterback, Aikman remains knowledgeable, engaging and concise when it comes to offering his analysis of what he sees on the field.

Ratings: Star power 9/10, Knowledge 8/10, Popularity 9/10, Chemistry 10/10 

Total: 36/40

The Los Angeles Lakers’ front-office reshaping under Rob Pelinka has taken another significant step, with the franchise ending a months-long search for its second assistant general manager.

Los Angeles is bringing in Eric Amsler, the Miami Heat’s vice president of player personnel, to serve as an assistant general manager, adding another experienced voice to the Lakers’ basketball operations department.

Amsler becomes the second assistant GM addition of the offseason for the Lakers, following Pelinka’s early-offseason comments that the organization planned to broaden and strengthen its front-office structure.

In May, the Lakers also appointed Rohan Ramadas to an assistant general manager role as part of that ongoing expansion.

READ MORE: Posts Show Lindsay Clancy Juror Supported Karen Read

“A lot of the infrastructure is being built,” Pelinka said in May. “We will continue to staff out with assistant general manager positions. There’s a couple of those that we’re currently interviewing for and have done an extensive dive in that process. Those will be two key pillars that we’ll add for this offseason.”

Amsler spent 22 years in the Heat organization, starting as an intern in 2004-05 before working his way up to various other roles: scouting and information coordinator (2005-07); scouting and player personnel coordinator (2007-14); director of scouting operations (2015-18); director of scouting/assistant director of player personnel/assistant general manager for the Sioux Falls Skyforce (2018-19) and finally director of player personnel/general manager for the Skyforce (2019-23) before being promoted to his most recent role with the Heat.

A 24-year-old Florida woman accused of crashing an SUV into a parked vehicle appeared to minimize the wreck before making a personal appeal to the officers handling the investigation, according to newly released video.

“I thought we were all friends,” Elizabeth Boucher told Daytona Beach police during the Aug. 30 encounter, bodycam footage shows.

Surveillance footage made public by police captures the SUV slamming into a parked Honda with such force that the car is pushed across a front lawn and disappears from the camera’s frame.

Yet when an officer asked Boucher to explain what had happened, her description on police body camera video was noticeably less dramatic than the crash captured on surveillance.

“I guess I hit the front light of those cars, but I don’t know what really happened,” Boucher said.

“You didn’t just hit the front of the car,” the officer fired back. “You just took the car completely off.”

Body camera video shows the officer then asking Boucher for her driver’s license. She instead hands him a passport.

“That’s a passport,” he tells her before again asking for her license.

As the roadside investigation unfolded, Boucher pleaded with officers not to lock her up.

“It’s just a vape. I know. It didn’t even work,” she said. “Please don’t take me to jail over this.”

An officer later told Boucher that the case had been shifted from a civil crash investigation to a criminal DUI investigation, and read her Miranda rights.

Asked whether she would perform field sobriety exercises, Boucher refused, according to the video. She also declined a breath test after an officer formally requested one.

When Boucher again invoked their supposed friendship, an officer responded, “But we still have a job to do.”

“I know. I’m not resisting arrest,” Boucher said. “I just want to make sure my daughter gets what she needs.”

An officer then instructed her to lean against a vehicle “so you don’t fall.”

“Am I going to jail?” Boucher asked moments later.

“Yes,” the officer replied.

The woman whose vehicle was struck also told officers that Boucher had confronted and slapped her following the crash, according to the bodycam video.

“Did she touch you at any point?” an officer asked.

“Yeah, she smacked me right here,” the woman alleges before saying she wanted to press charges.

After she was placed under arrest, Boucher appeared confused by the slow-moving process.

“Why am I sitting here all alone? Why is nothing happening?” she asked.

“That’s normally what happens when you are arrested,” an officer told her.

Boucher was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, DUI involving damage to property or another person, refusing to submit to DUI testing, battery by touching or striking, resisting an officer without violence and possessing a controlled substance without a prescription, according to police.

An attorney for Boucher could not immediately be identified.

She was released from jail Aug. 31, and has pleaded not guilty to the charges, according to court records. 

She is expected back in court in October.

The morning started with rare clarity: the Manhattan skyline laid out in front of New York City firefighter Peter Fallucca as he crossed the Verrazzano Bridge on his way to work.

Fallucca, still a relatively new firefighter with Engine 16, could not have known that the striking view he took in that day would soon be altered forever.

Moments after hearing the first plane thunder directly over his firehouse, he and his company were sent to the World Trade Center, arriving just as the second aircraft slammed into the South Tower and erupted in flames.

Loaded with hoses and air tanks, he made his way into the North Tower, joining the long line of firefighters heading up as office workers moved steadily and calmly down the tight stairwells.

Fallucca climbed as high as the 23rd floor before the tower jolted violently. An evacuation order sent him back toward the lobby, and an injured woman brought him outside only minutes before the North Tower came down.

Every firefighter from Fallucca’s Engine 16 survived, but members of Ladder 7, housed under the same roof, never came home. 

‘I’m not even supposed to be here,’ he told the Daily Mail, reflecting on the narrow escape that allowed him to become a grandfather. 

Nearly 25 years later, Fallucca believes America has forgotten both the surge of patriotism that followed the attacks and the danger exposed that morning, as the younger generation increasingly sees September 11 as merely a page in a history book. ‘It could happen again,’ he warned. 

Fallucca added: ‘I think we lost that patriotism that we had in the days after 9/11. There wasn’t a house that didn’t have an American flag on it. 

‘Now, today, [if you have] an American flag, people think you’re racist or you’re something. So it’s almost looked down upon to be a patriot.’

He warned that Americans must remain vigilant and recognize that an attack could happen again, arguing that concerns about offending people should not prevent the country from confronting those who openly express hatred toward it. 

Fallucca has also shared his story in The History Channel documentary 102 Minutes Inside the Towers, premiering on Friday, September 11 at 8pm ET. 

The firefighter’s life changed when he and his unit were standing outside when they heard the thunderous sound of a low-flying aircraft.

‘I literally heard that first plane fly right over the firehouse,’ Fallucca recalled. Within a minute, a report came over the scanner that a plane had struck the World Trade Center. 

His lieutenant, Mickey Cross, told the crew to prepare, and within about two minutes they were sent to the scene.

As Engine 16 traveled south on the FDR Drive, Fallucca could see the damaged tower. 

What initially looked like birds flying around it was office paper pouring from the building.

A probationary firefighter who had joined the academy about two weeks earlier sat across from him, excited to be responding to his first fire. Fallucca sensed what awaited them, saying to the new recruit: ‘”This is gonna be a tough one.” But I didn’t think it was going to be as bad as it was.’

The streets were filled with people staring at the tower as Engine 16 approached, and then the second plane struck.

Fallucca heard a deafening explosion as debris rained onto the fire engine, and the crew understood the country was under attack.

Inside the North Tower, Fallucca’s crew was ordered toward the 70th floor to establish communications and fight any fires it encountered. 

Loaded with hoses and air bottles, the firefighters climbed about 10 floors at a time.

Firefighters moved up one side of a narrow stairwell as office workers descended on the other. 

‘The stairwell was shoulder to shoulder,’ Fallucca said.

‘They had bottles of water. They were handing us bottles of water, and we’d take a slug of water and hand the bottle back to the guy behind us.

‘They were super supportive. They were like, “Look at these guys. We’re running out, they’re going in.”’

The firefighters reached around the 23rd floor when Cross stepped onto an office floor to assess conditions. Suddenly, the tower shook.

Fallucca initially thought another plane had struck the North Tower, unaware that the violent shaking was actually the South Tower collapsing nearby. 

Amid the confusion, Fallucca heard an order over the radio directing all Fire Department personnel to evacuate.

‘I told the lieutenant from Engine 1, “Hey, Lou, I just heard on the radio they want us to evacuate the building,”’ Fallucca said.

‘He said, “No, no, they don’t mean us. They mean the civilians.”

‘I said, “No, they said Fire Department personnel.” And he said, “No, I’m going to keep going up.”

‘And he went up. That was the last I saw him.’

Unable to reach Cross by radio, Fallucca began walking down with the probationary firefighter, checking offices and searching for the rest of their crew. 

They did not run because they still did not know the other tower had collapsed.

When they reached the lobby 10 to 15 minutes later, the command center that had been buzzing with activity was deserted.

‘When we first got there, the lobby was a beehive of activity,’ Fallucca said. ‘When I came down, nobody was in the lobby. I said, “Where did everybody go? What’s going on?”’ 

Fallucca waited for Cross, fearing his lieutenant might endanger himself searching for the separated firefighters. 

After what felt like an eternity, a senior Engine 16 firefighter appeared with an emergency medical worker, carrying a woman in a rescue chair.

‘If he doesn’t walk out, I sit in the lobby, and I wait,’ Fallucca said. ‘I was like, “I’m not leaving,” because I’m waiting for Lieutenant Cross to come.’

But when the firefighters needed help carrying the woman outside, Fallucca reluctantly abandoned his post and followed them, a decision that would save his life.

Fallucca helped move her across the West Side Highway and into an ambulance, then headed toward a corner to regroup before returning for more people.

Fallucca turned and looked up. The North Tower was coming down.

He stared for three or four seconds, frozen ‘like in a trance,’ before seeing others race past and realizing he needed to run. 

‘I remember, in my peripheral vision, seeing people running past me, and I said, “I should start running now.”

‘I looked behind me, and that cloud was coming, a dark black cloud. Then I got hit with this gust of wind. 

‘It felt like sand and dust and particles and everything. That was lights out. You couldn’t see your hands in the street.’

He ran with one hand against a building wall until he saw light spilling from an open doorway, then followed others into Stuyvesant High School.

Outside, fighter jets roared overhead as Fallucca thought about his two young daughters at home on Staten Island.

‘I knew the country was under attack,’ he said. ‘My little girls are back in Staten Island. What are we doing?’

Fire chiefs prevented Fallucca and the other surviving firefighters from immediately returning to the wreckage, telling them fresh crews were arriving from across the city.

‘They wouldn’t let anybody back in,’ Fallucca said. ‘They didn’t know how safe the area was at the time.’

Fallucca eventually returned to his firehouse, but he was soon back at Ground Zero, working 24 hours on and 24 hours off as crews desperately searched for survivors.

The site was eerily quiet apart from the machinery, Fallucca said, adding that rescuers could hear ‘a pin drop.’

Fallucca’s first shift stretched to roughly 20 hours after a mask from Ladder 7 was found near the Marriott hotel, sending him and others rushing there to dig. 

He found victims during the search, but no one alive.

‘Some things I found, you couldn’t even identify exactly what they were,’ said Fallucca.

‘You knew it was some sort of flesh or human remains, but a lot of it you couldn’t make out.’

Fallucca worked at Ground Zero for roughly two or three months. He later developed asthma, acid reflux and sleep apnea, which he said have been attributed to the clean-up at Ground Zero.

He retired in 2024, but the attacks have never let go of him. A low-flying plane can still make him look up and track it across the sky.

Fallucca also thinks about the chain of decisions that spared him. Cross survived as well after stopping with about a dozen others in a section of stairwell to help another woman who could go no farther.

‘With all the tragedy that was of that day, there are a lot of miracles,’ Fallucca said. ‘Mickey Cross was a miracle. I feel I was a miracle. The whole Engine 16 was a miracle. We all walked away.’

As he prepares to return to Engine 16 for the 25th anniversary, Fallucca worries that ‘never forget’ has lost its meaning and that the unity once symbolized by American flags outside homes has faded.

Survival, meanwhile, has made the life that followed feel immeasurably precious. Fallucca watched his children grow and lived to meet his grandchildren, milestones denied to many firefighters who entered the towers that morning.

‘There are so many things that I got the opportunity to do,’ he said, becoming emotional. ‘A lot of guys didn’t.’

The death of Sir Richard Branson’s wife, Lady Joan Templeman, may have been “prevented” had she received medication to treat a blood clot, a coroner has said.

After examining the circumstances surrounding Templeman’s death, Professor Fiona Wilcox, the senior coroner at Inner West London Coroner’s Court, said she had not been given anticoagulant drugs — blood thinners used to reduce the risk of dangerous clots — according to The Independent.

Wilcox said Templeman, who died in November 2025 at the age of 80, would likely not have suffered a fatal pulmonary embolism if she had received the medication at London’s Lister Hospital. A pulmonary embolism occurs when a blood clot, often formed in the deep veins of the legs, suddenly blocks an artery in the lungs.

“I do find her death would have likely been prevented and the lack of anticoagulation did cause or contribute to her death probably,” Wilcox stated.

Page Six has contacted the Inner West London Coroner’s Court for comment.

Templeman — who was married to the Virgin Records founder for 36 years — died at Lister Hospital on Nov. 24, 2025, two weeks after she suffered a fall at the family’s Necker Island home. 

Before the investigation, Templeman and Richard’s daughter, Holly, sent an email to the court where she expressed concern over how her mom was treated in the hospital, according to the Daily Mail.

Holly claimed Templeman was “accustomed to” taking anti-blood clot injections and doubted that her mom refused to take the medication at the hospital before her death.

“Had I been aware she was not receiving Enoxaparin injections I would have been very concerned given her recent long haul travel and medical history,” Holly said.

Dr. Basir Kunduzi, who was on duty at Lister Hospital, reportedly told the coroner that he thought Templeman should’ve received the medication, but he didn’t give her it because “there was a risk of bleeding” after her fall.

READ MORE: Real Estate Leader Tells Gen Z to Stop Dining Out to Afford a Home

Dr. Kunduzi claimed he instead gave Templeman a CT scan to make sure there was no bleeding and then wrote on her records that she wasn’t given the blood clot meds, but assumed another doctor would’ve reviewed his decision.

He expressed regret for his medical decision, per the Daily Mail.

Dr. Nevil Pavithran, who took over Templeman’s care, reportedly said during the investigation that Templeman should’ve received the meds within 12 hours of her being admitted to the hospital.

Dr. Pavithran also claimed “there was no bleeding risk” from Templeman taking the meds.

Dr. Bovill, who also treated Templeman at the hospital, admitted he screwed up by not forcing her to get the injections.

“I thought long and hard about this and reflected on it… I should have perhaps been much more forceful,” Dr. Bovill said. “It’s to my great regret I did not.”

When asked if he ever revisited his decision to not prescribe the drugs, Dr. Bovill replied, “Again, with great regret, I did not.”

Richard, 76, tragically announced his wife’s death on Instagram in November, but didn’t give any further details at the time.

In his tribute, the billionaire said he was “heartbroken” over the tragedy.

He also called Templeman the “most wonderful” mom and grandmother to their children and grandkids that he could have “ever wished for.”

MENDHAM BOROUGH, N.J. — Hundreds of mourners gathered over two days to honor Erin Guiltinan Piacenti, the Bank of America executive fatally stabbed in what authorities described as a random, unprovoked attack in New York City’s Times Square last week. She was laid to rest Wednesday.

Piacenti, 32, of Chester, New Jersey, had recently returned to work from maternity leave following the birth of her first child when police said a woman with a history of mental illness attacked her and another bystander on Seventh Avenue.

The eldest of five siblings, Piacenti graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and later earned her law degree from Fordham University School of Law, according to her family’s death announcement.

At Penn, she served as music director of the Dischord A Cappella group. Her obituary said she later met her husband, Frank Piacenti, while attending law school. The couple married in 2024 and welcomed their first and only child, Madison, in March.

After graduation, she worked at the Manhattan-based international law firm, Davis Polk & Wardwell, before becoming a vice president at Bank of America.

Piacenti and her husband had returned from a vacation celebrating their two-year anniversary the day before her murder, according to the family.

Aug. 31 was also her first day back from maternity leave, according to the organizer of a GoFundMe campaign that has raised nearly $1 million as of Tuesday for 6-month-old Madison.

At a wake Tuesday evening, hundreds of mourners lined up outside the St. Joseph Catholic Church in Mendham Borough, New Jersey. They came and left in small groups between 3 and 8 p.m., with the church’s parking lot full much of the evening, and local police were coordinating traffic.

A funeral Mass was held on Wednesday at 11 a.m. ET at the same church.

The family is asking for donations to the GoFundMe in lieu of flowers.

READ MORE: Disgraced Attorney Accused of Trying to Shoot Ex-Wife During Dinner

The Times Square attack:

Just before 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 31, Piacenti was stabbed in the abdomen in New York’s Times Square, according to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. The injury proved fatal.

Speaking with reporters on the evening of the murder, Tisch identified the suspect as 49-year-old Queens resident Pamela Cisneros.

Just 20 seconds before the attack on Piacenti, Cisneros stabbed a 68-year-old man who was waiting at a crosswalk with his wife, Tisch said, calling the stabbings “random and unprovoked.” He survived and was hospitalized in stable condition, according to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

“I ask New Yorkers to join me in holding the victim in our thoughts and wishing them a full recovery,” he said at a news briefing. “I want to thank the NYPD officers who stepped in and prevented a horrific attack from becoming even worse.”

A routine investigation into the officers’ conduct would be conducted, he said, and the city will release bodycam footage.

Part of a subsequent standoff with police was captured on video. The woman identified as Cisneros can be seen holding two kitchen knives. Police told her repeatedly to drop the weapons.

“I’m not dropping anything,” she told the officers, according to Tisch. “I would rather kill both of you. I will kill you.”

NYPD officers attempted to stop her with stun guns, which failed to stop her. As she approached officers while waving the knives, they opened fire.

The incident caused road closures on Seventh Avenue between 42nd and 47th streets.

Cisneros was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital. Tisch said she had a documented history of mental health issues that led to interactions with the NYPD in 2018 and 2019 — but no prior arrests.

“Tonight, our thoughts are of course with the victims of this horrific attack and their families,” Tisch told reporters near the scene last week. “One life cut far too short by a senseless act of violence.”