Tracy Wolfson spends most of her time on an NFL sideline making Jim Nantz and Tony Romo better at their jobs without ever appearing on camera.
She’ll catch an official talking to Dak Prescott during a break, send it up to the booth with no context, and Romo will immediately know what it’s about. They’ll bring in Gene Steratore for a rules discussion that becomes a segment. She’ll hear something in an offensive line huddle and relay it to Nantz, who works it into his next setup. Romo will mention a player rotating in and out, and she’ll sprint to the opposite sideline to find out why.
This is how the best sideline reporter in football actually works, not by maximizing her airtime, but by serving as the connective tissue between what’s happening on the field and what Nantz and Romo can explain in the booth.
“I probably pass on half of the stuff that I get from the field to the booth or the truck, because it’s impossible to get it all in,” Wolfson told Awful Announcing in a phone interview last month.
Twenty-one years into covering football — 11 in the NFL, a decade before that in college — Wolfson has watched the position evolve from storytelling platform to real-time intelligence operation. The question she’s constantly asking herself isn’t what she knows, but what the broadcast needs and whether she’s the right person to deliver it.
“As I’ve learned, it’s really what is the most relevant information and how does it work into a broadcast,” she said. “What are you getting that’s different than Jim and Tony? Because Jim’s the greatest storyteller there is, so that he can tell the story. But what am I adding that’s different?”
That question has fundamentally reshaped how she approaches the job. Early in her career, especially in college football, the goal was education. Who are these players? What’s their background? How can you bring their stories to life for fans who don’t know them?
The NFL is different. These are the biggest games in the country with the most recognizable players. There’s less time for feature storytelling, less need for biographical context. What matters is what’s happening right now and what it means for the game unfolding in front of 20 million people.
“We have the biggest games in the country,” she said. “A lot of times, you don’t have the time to tell a story anymore. And I love that. I love the relevant stuff to the game, and how can I enhance it?”
Enhancing it means understanding that half of what she gathers won’t make it to air — and that’s by design.
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The Invisible Work
The work happens in commercial breaks. Wolfson sees something, sends it up to Nantz and Romo, and they decide together how to use it. Sometimes it becomes her report. Sometimes they discuss it amongst themselves. Sometimes it turns into something else entirely, like that Steratore segment that started with her noticing an official talking to Prescott.
“A lot of the stuff I hear, you can’t report,” she said. “I might send it up to them, and they might be able to discuss it amongst themselves and come out with a way to talk about it. Or maybe bring it from their light. There’s a lot of things that are happening in between commercials that we’re all working together.”
This is the invisible architecture of CBS’s top broadcast team. Wolfson functioning as eyes and ears on the field, feeding information up to the booth that shapes how Nantz frames sequences and what Romo chooses to explain. The viewer never sees the collaboration, only the result — a broadcast that feels more informed, more connected to what’s actually happening on the sidelines.
“I think we work the best together when we have those stories where maybe I start it, Jim follows, Tony explains,” Wolfson said. “Or Tony mentions something, I add, and Jim wraps up with something else. It’s when you all work together as a team, and I think we’re really good at that, at kind of piggybacking off of each other.”
The hierarchy doesn’t matter. Wolfson isn’t thinking about her position versus theirs, about field versus booth. She’s thinking about making the broadcast better, which sometimes means being the setup for Nantz’s storytelling or the fact-checker for Romo’s analysis, not the star of her own segment.
“We’re a team,” she continued. “It doesn’t matter where our positions are, whether I’m on the field they’re in the booth. We’re kind of all just working to enhance the broadcast, and I think that’s when it works the best.”
Heat of the Moment
When Wolfson does get on camera, she wants the coach or player there with her, not herself regurgitating what they said minutes earlier in a hallway.
“To be honest, my feeling is to see a player or a coach instead of regurgitating information about what you talked to them about just makes it for a better feel in that moment, heat of the moment,” she said. “You don’t know what kind of reaction you’re going to get, just seeing the coaches’ or players’ faces.”
The unscripted moments reveal more than any packaged standup. A frustrated coach after a brutal first half. A player still processing what just went wrong. Someone being short or curt because they’re locked into the game, not the interview. Those reactions tell the audience something real about the emotional state of the team, something Wolfson, describing their earlier conversation, never could.
“It could be something happened at the end of the half, and you’re getting an excited coach or frustrated coach, a mad coach, someone who’s short with you, not with you, curt with you,” she said. “I mean, it’s happened to me in every situation, but I think you’re really getting a real response.”
Getting those real responses on air requires preparation during the week and awareness during the game. What storylines has the coach been emphasizing? What have Nantz and Romo been discussing in the booth? How is it actually playing out on the field?
“You’re always asking the right question, you’re listening, you’re listening to your announcers, what are they harping on?” she said. “What have been the storylines going into the game that the coach was harping on? How is it playing out?”
The best sideline interviews aren’t about Wolfson demonstrating what she knows. They’re about asking a question that prompts the coach or player to reveal something the broadcast needs in that moment.
The social media problem
The hardest part of the job now is the thing Wolfson has the least control over: social media moves faster than any broadcast can.
A star player goes down, X explodes with speculation and updates, and she’s on the sideline waiting for official confirmation from team personnel who might not be in any rush to share. Fans are watching their phones, seeing reports she hasn’t confirmed yet, wondering why she isn’t saying anything.
“It’s a little frustrating because it’s stuff to get that stuff in a game right away,” she said. “One, they might be on defense, and you’re talking about an offensive lineman. And is it relevant at that point? Yes, if it’s a star player, you’ve got to get in as quickly as possible, but a lot of times, you’re holding it for a moment, or there’s too much going on, or there’s a red zone, or we’re going to a commercial.”
Patrick Surtain II’s injury against Dallas last week was one of those moments where speed mattered. Star defensive player, game-shaping absence, information the broadcast needed immediately. Producer Jim Rickhoff got it to Nantz fast, Nantz brought her in, and the audience had what it needed.
Pat Surtain II has been ruled out with a shoulder injury
A look at his last play before exiting: pic.twitter.com/kkktyPnZ13
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) October 26, 2025
But not every injury works that way.
Fred Warner’s broken ankle in San Francisco was obvious the moment it happened. Everyone watching saw the cart, saw the air cast, and knew the severity. Wolfson could have jumped on immediately with a basic update: out for the game, broken ankle, we’ll keep you posted. The kind of report she knows frustrates fans because it doesn’t tell them anything they don’t already know.
An update on Fred Warner, via @tracywolfson pic.twitter.com/MI542NbX26
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) October 12, 2025
“I didn’t need to add anything right away,” she said. “It was very obvious, and of course, I get that a lot. ‘Here’s the update: he’s out with a broken ankle,’ and everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, we know that. Thank you.’ I get that a lot.”
So she waited. Not for the sake of waiting, but to find something worth saying. What happened when he was carted off? Did he go to the X-ray room? Where is he now? Is he heading to the hospital or staying in the locker room? Context that actually added to what viewers already knew.
“So my perspective is what kind of context, what other stuff can I get?” she said. “And if that means waiting a few extra minutes, or maybe even a quarter, until you get something fresh and new, that’s OK.”
She’s learned to ignore the social race while still using it as a tool. Someone in the press box might catch something on the opposite sideline she can’t see. Nantz or Romo might say something that prompts her to investigate. During the Denver-Dallas game, CeeDee Lamb kept rotating in and out of the game. Wolfson wondered if it was altitude-related, whether he had the sickle cell trait that makes high elevation dangerous for some players. She spent time researching, checking with doctors and PR staff, trying to confirm before saying anything on air.
Turned out it was just a tweaked ankle. But that’s the process. Chase down what matters, confirm what you can, and remember who you’re actually broadcasting to.
“Most of the people watching are not following along on Twitter,” she said. “We’re really broadcasting to the game, to the fans that are watching us on TV. Those fans don’t know exactly what’s happening. They might just see it. My goal is to get it as soon as possible.”
When official word isn’t coming fast enough and the situation demands it, she’ll tell Rickoff to put her on anyway. She’ll report what she can see, what she knows for certain, and promise to follow up as soon as she has more. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than silence when fans are wondering what happened to a star player.
“You feel responsible,” she said. “That’s your responsibility. You’re the one down there.”
The responsibility extends beyond just injury updates. Fantasy football has changed viewer expectations. Fans are managing rosters, checking point totals, and needing to know immediately if Isaiah Pacheco is coming back or done for the day. Wolfson feels that pressure every week.
“Fans at home, especially with fantasy these days, are like ‘What’s happening? What’s going on? Why is Isaiah Pacheco out? What do I do? Is he gonna be back next week? What’s the situation?” she said. “You’re just trying to figure it all out.”
But figuring it all out quickly doesn’t mean abandoning the filter. It means getting the right information as fast as possible while understanding that sometimes context matters more than speed, and sometimes staying off camera until you have something worth saying is the better choice for the broadcast.
“That’s how it works for me,” she said. “Getting the correct and most recent information as possible is your goal.”