Marvin Harrison Jr.'s debut for the Houston Texans will no doubt be a point of interest during Sunday's game against the Jacksonville Jaguars in London.
An under-the-radar debut also will be unfolding in the Wembley Stadium broadcast booth.
Bob Wischusen, the veteran play-by-play announcer, will be calling his first nationally televised NFL regular-season game when the AFC South rivals play in England for the second time in eight seasons on NFL Network.
Wischusen became a beneficiary of the takeover of the NFL Network by ESPN in a transaction that saw the league receive a 10% stake in the latter network. He earned the nod for Sunday's 8:30 a.m. kickoff - which will also air on KTRK (ABC 13) in Houston - with analyst Louis Riddick and sideline reporter Molly McGrath.
"Obviously very excited to be a part of it," Wischusen told the Houston Chronicle from London. "Let's be honest, the NFL has cracked the code. And whether it's the combination of every game feels like Armageddon because there's only 17 of them, and fantasy football, of course it seems like everybody's got a fantasy team. And look at the end of the year television ratings and the top 50 (rated events), they're all NFL games.
"So to be involved in something like this and for ESPN to have the faith to include me in it is absolutely an honor and I'm really excited about being here."
TEXANS AT JAGUARS
When: 8:30 a.m. Sunday
Where: Wembley Stadium, London
TV: ABC (in Houston market) and NFL Network
Radio: 95.7 FM, 610 AM, 101.1 FM (Spanish)
Wischusen figures to be familiar to football fans as he calls a college game weekly for ESPN/ABC. He's also the longtime radio voice of the New York Jets and is known for his NHL work on ESPN, which he joined in 2005. Sunday will be just the second Jets game he's missed in 25 seasons. The other came when he tested positive for COVID during the 2022 season.
Making the transatlantic trek to call Texans-Jaguars after working last week's Texas A&M-Missouri game on ABC is made easier by being alongside Riddick, his partner for three years on college games and a longtime NFL analyst for ESPN who previously was on the No. 2 Monday night crew for the occasional doubleheaders. The duo called another international game this season, the Rams-49ers opener in Melbourne on ESPN's international feed that went to viewers in Australia.
"It's tremendous," Wischusen said of the continuity. "It's probably the one reason why, as I'm preparing for this game, I don't really feel nervous or anxious because we do this every week. … He has been through this. Obviously, dozens of times having done that secondary Monday night football package. And he knows the league.
"That's the biggest security blanket, as the play-by-play guy, is I cannot stump him. I cannot put him in a bad place. I cannot ask him a question he doesn't know the answer to. I mean, if I were to ask him if the backup guard has good footwork, he'll know. Because that's the dive that he does every week into these teams. So having somebody next to you that I'm really comfortable with, first of all, because he's just a great person, but someone that is so consummately prepared to do this is a real feeling of security when you're going to go into something new."
Something new includes the Harrison trade, which was announced after Sunday's win at Tennessee and which Wischusen acknowledged would likely make the opening of the broadcast. He's already done his prep, noting that if C.J. Stroud throws a touchdown pass to Harrison - his former Ohio State teammate - it'll mark the second time in the common draft era that two top-five picks connected for a scoring pass. The other duo is the Bengals' Joe Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase.
"The history those two have together, the drama that Marvin Harrison just escaped in Arizona, the injury problems that the Texans have had on offense - I would think he would be a focal point for us early," Wischusen said.
Wischusen is no stranger to games in London. He's called four games there on Jets radio, including last season against Denver at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. He said he'll marvel at the Wembley scene Sunday.
"I'm always amazed at two things," Wischusen said. "A, you can play the license plate game with jerseys in the stadium. Like every jersey in the NFL seems to be represented somewhere in the stadium. You've got people here, I'm sure they're like, ‘I'm going to an NFL game. I want to dress like an NFL fan. I'm just going to go buy a jersey.' And I would probably be the same if I went to a Premier League soccer game.
"But also how into it the crowd is. When you're at the game, the crowd reacts on third and fourth down the way an American football crowd reacts. The crowd knows when a big play is being made. They understand the importance of the sack. It's a shockingly educated American football crowd, even for the percentage of people, I think, that are local that are here that go to these games."
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There’s more to Houston with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25¢.This article originally published at Texans-Jaguars game in London brings cherised opportunity for ESPN's Bob Wischusen.