NFL’s Luckiest Commentators: Which Voices Are Linked to More Wins? 

NFL fans are no strangers to game-day superstitions. Maybe it’s a lucky jersey, watching the game in the same spot every Sunday, or even refusing to watch the game with that one unlucky family member. But what if we tell you that your team’s good luck charm could also be sitting in the commentary booth? 

Commentators are the voices behind some of football’s biggest moments – calling the highs, lows, and last-second wins that fans will remember. So, we wanted to know: do certain commentators always seem to be on call when your team wins? 

We analyzed the last five regular seasons – 1,359 games and 2,718 individual team performances to be exact – to see how teams performed with different commentators behind the mic. We compared each team’s win rate with a particular commentator on the call against its overall win rate from 2021-2025 to create the Commentator Luck Score.  

Key highlights: 

• The Patriots have the NFL’s luckiest commentator pairing: New England went 6-0 with Andrew Catalon, resulting in a +52.9% luck score 

• The Colts have the unluckiest commentator pairing: Indianapolis went 0-7 with Kenny Albert, resulting in a –45.3% luck score 

• Tom McCarthy ranks as NFL’s luckiest commentator overall: Across 30 games, various teams performed an average of 10% better than their usual same-season rate when he was on the call  

• Jim Nantz ranks as NFL’s unluckiest commentator overall: Across 90 games, teams performed an average of 8.1% below their usual same-season win rate  

The luckiest team and commentator pairings 

To find each team’s lucky voice, we compared their win rate with each commentator on the call against their overall win rate. The bigger the boost in wins, the higher in luck score (%). 

While the study covers five full regular seasons, the records below (e.g. 6-0) refer only to the games where that specific team and commentator were paired together, rather than every game the commentator called during that period. 

The Patriots hit the jackpot with Andrew Catalon, as no other NFL team-commentator combination tops New England and Catalon. 

Across the five seasons analyzed, the Patriots went a perfect 6-0 in games called by Catalon. Compared with New England’s overall 47.1% win rate, that gives the pairing a +52.9% luck score – the highest in the NFL. 

The Atlanta Falcons and Christ Myers take second place. Atlanta went 7-1 with Myers behind the mic, winning 87.5% of those compared with a 43.5% overall win rate. That works out to a +44% luck score.  

In third are the Las Vegas Raiders and Greg Gumbel, as they also enjoyed an impressive run in games called by the late Gumbel, going 4-1 for a +43.5% luck score. 

Bad call: NFL’s unluckiest commentator pairings

We’ve seen which commentators appear to bring each team the most luck, but what about the voices fans might not want behind the mic? Looking at the other end of the data, we ranked each team by its most cursed commentator pairing – where its win rate dropped the most compared with its usual performance.  

No pairing was more cursed than the Indianapolis Colts and Kenny Albert. The Colts went 0-7 with Albert on the call, compared with their usual 45.3%-win rate, giving the duo a low -45.3% luck score. 

The Pittsburgh Steelers and Al Michaels weren’t much luckier too. Pittsburgh had a 57.1% overall win rate but went just 1-5 (16.7%) with Michaels behind the mic. That’s a 40.4-point drop, giving the pairing a –40.4% luck score. 

And perhaps the Chicago Bears fans should knock on wood when Jim Nantz is in the booth. Chicago won 37.6% of its games overall, but went 0-5 (0%) in games called by Nantz. That’s a 37.6-point drop and the NFL’s third-most cursed pairing.  

Beyond the team: Which commentators are linked to better (or worst) performances? 

So far, we’ve listed which commentators bring the best and worst luck to individual NFL teams. But when we zoom out and consider every team and game each commentator called, which voices seem to have the lucky touch across the entire league? 

Because some commentators called far more games than others, we calculated their score based on average team performance across all of their games, rather than total wins. This allows someone who called 30 games to be compared with someone who called 90. 

Tom McCarthy takes the crown as the NFL’s luckiest commentator overall. Across 30 games involving 20 different teams, teams performed an average of 10% above their usual same season win rate when McCarthy was behind the mic. 

Spero Dedes takes second place, recording a +7.8% luck score across 76 games and 30 teams. Greg Gumbel rounds out the top three, with teams performing 6.2% above their usual rate across 36 games involving 25 teams. 

At the other end of the booth, Jim Nantz ranks as the unluckiest commentator overall. Across 90 games involving 28 different teams, teams performed an average of 8.1% below their usual same season win rate. 

The unlucky streak stretches across some of the NFL’s most familiar voices. Mike Tirico ranks second from the bottom at -7.1%, despite calling 85 games involving 31 of the NFL’s 32 teams. Kevin Burkhardt (-6.2%) completes the bottom three after 87 games involving 30 teams. 

Is it really luck of the mic? 

Of course, having a certain commentator behind the mic isn’t going to determine the fate of the game. But across five regular seasons of NFL games, the data does reveal some pretty striking patterns between certain voices and teams’ fortunes. After all, fans have had superstitions about almost everything else…why not the person calling the game? 

Methodology

To determine which NFL commentators appear to bring teams the most luck, we analyzed 1,359 completed regular-season games across all 32 NFL teams from the 2021 through 2025 seasons. This gave us 2,718 individual team-game observations, as every game was analyzed from the perspective of both teams playing. 

For every game, we recorded the teams, final score, result, network and lead play-by-play commentator. We then calculated how often each team won when a particular commentator was on the call and compared this with the team’s overall win rate across the five seasons. The difference between these figures created our Commentator Luck Score. Only team-commentator pairings with at least five games together were included in the main rankings. 

To rank commentators overall, we used an adjusted calculation to account for the different teams and seasons they covered. Each team’s result was compared with that team’s win rate during the same season, before these differences were averaged across all games called by the commentator. Commentators needed to have called at least 20 games to qualify for the overall ranking. 

A win was counted as 1, a tie as 0.5, and a loss as 0. Results are descriptive and show patterns between commentator assignments and team performance; they do not suggest that commentators influence the outcome of games. 

The data was collected in September 2026. 

Fair use

Feel free to use the data or visuals on this page for non-commercial purposes. Please be sure to include proper attribution linking back to this page to give credit to the authors.  

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