Jim Nantz is going to play through it.
According to Jimmy Traina, who said on his Traina Thoughts podcast that he texted Nantz asking for an on-the-record comment on his hand, the CBS play-by-play voice provided an injury update as a nervous nation sits on its hands waiting to learn whether he’ll be calling Sunday’s game in a cast.
“Jimmy, I’ll probably be listed as questionable Wednesday when the first injury report comes out. Jim Rikhoff suggested they will work me out before the game Sunday in Baltimore, but I expect to be a go.”
The injury happened during CBS’s broadcast of Sunday’s Bills-Raiders game, when Watt was explaining that ball carriers have started locking the wrist of their ball-carrying hand to protect against the “Peanut Punch,” a move popularized by Charles “Peanut” Tillman to force a fumble by punching the ball out of the carrier’s hands.
To prove the technique works, Watt had the 67-year-old Nantz stand up and punch the football as hard as he could.
Jim Nantz trying to “Peanut Punch” a football out of J.J. Watt’s hands is incredible live television.
https://t.co/4X3Xq31JS0
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 18, 2026
Nantz needed Watt to confirm twice that the invitation was real, and when Watt egged him on a second time, the 67-year-old rose from his chair, reared back, and unloaded a full-bodied haymaker on the football. Watt’s wrist-lock held without so much as a wobble, more than could be said for Nantz’s wrist, and CBS’s signature voice slumped back into his seat, cradling it, deadpanning that it was broken and returning from the commercial break nursing an ice pack.
“Physical at times in that first half. Gonna be a few folks having to play hurt the last couple of quarters…”
– Jim Nantz holding an ice pack
https://t.co/oY2FpDm6y0
— NFL on CBS
(@NFLonCBS) October 18, 2026
“Every announcer by week seven is broadcasting with some kind of bump or bruise,” Nantz told Traina. “I told J.J. they’re going to have to drag me out of the booth to stop me from talking.”
Unless he suffers a setback, Nantz will be next to Watt in Baltimore on Sunday for Bengals-Ravens, and he’ll most likely leave the defensive demonstrations to the guy with three Defensive Player of the Year awards.
The post Jim Nantz lists himself as ‘questionable’ after Peanut Punch wrist injury, expects to be ‘a go’ for Bengals-Ravens appeared first on Awful Announcing.