Has there ever been a time when words have failed you? In 1999, when Ted Williams came out and saluted the fans at the All Star Game at Fenway, I had a huge lump in my throat, and the producer is yelling in my ear to talk, and I couldn’t, thankfully, and it was much better. But usually I’m so wired to see and react and talk that I can usually come up with something if I have to. If I forget who No. 17 is for Green Bay, I can fill in the time with other words while I get down to my board with my eyes to remind myself that 17 is Davante Adams. If I start in, and I’m blanking on who it is, I can say, “Catch at the 15, Green Bay’s got a first down set up by ... Davante Adams.” You can eventually get there. I do it all the time.

How far have you ever gotten away from talking about sports? It’s really hard to go off topic. When Colin Kaepernick was kneeling during the national anthem, my producer said I had to cover it. If you want to get yourself into trouble, start talking about racial inequality and police brutality during the course of a football game. You’re trying to wedge it in, by the way, coming back from a commercial break where you’ve got literally nine seconds before the next play. What I try to do is to think about that moment and then write something down, that I know that when we come back, I go to that little corner of the stuff that I prepare. It’s really hard to make a Van Jones-level point between second and third down.

We have a little bit of time: Would you like to share an opinion on Kaepernick? The point that I would make is it’s easy for somebody like me to be critical of Colin Kaepernick, but I haven’t suffered some of the same issues that Colin Kaepernick has. On some level, it’s like, how dare I weigh in on what Kaepernick is doing or feeling? Having some sort of an open dialogue about taking a knee, that’s what I was always hoping for, and I think he got there.