Here’s what fans can expect watching Panthers-Chargers on TV Sunday
The Panthers are 0-2 and playing an afternoon game Sunday in Los Angeles. Superstar running back Christian McCaffrey (ankle) will not play.
The Chargers are 1-1 and looking up, heading into Sunday’s games, at a pair of 2-0 teams — Kansas City and Las Vegas — ahead of them in the AFC West standings.
Rookie Justin Herbert will start at QB and his team is favored by about a touchdown. They should be motivated.
So can the Panthers — who have had some good moments in losses to Las Vegas and Tampa Bay — put together a complete game? Can they muster offense without their best player?
Here’s what you can expect watching the game on TV.
▪ Some cool views of the Chargers new digs: Los Angeles’ new 70,000-seat stadium, which they share with the Rams, will host the Super Bowl in 2022 and the college football national championship in 2023. The stadium, which cost a reported $5 billion, has a translucent roof and huge high-definition video board suspended from that roof over the field.
▪ This week’s game will air on WBTV, Channel 3 at 4 p.m.. Greg Gumbel will handle play-by-play duties with Rich Gannon as the analyst and Jay Feely as the reporter. This is the same team that called the Panthers’ Week 1 game with Las Vegas.
▪ The game will also air on WBT radio (1110-AM).
▪ Other games available in the Charlotte market are Bears-Falcons at 1 p..m. and Cowboys-Seahawks at 4 p.m. Both games will air on Fox (WJZY, Channel 46).
▪ On Sunday Night Football (WCNC, Channel 36), which will start shortly after the Panthers-Chargers finish, Mike Tirico will replace Al Michaels on play-by-play, working with Cris Collinsworth. Michaels’ NBC contract expires in 2021, and the network will have Tirico, 53, call between three to five Sunday Night games for the 75-year-old Michaels, who told the New York Post that he was fine with the schedule, which cut down on his traveling.
Sunday Night Football this week features Packers at Saints.
▪ Last week, the Panthers-Bucs aired on Fox, which drew 16.9 million viewers to its NFL telecasts. That was up 10 percent over Week 2 from 2019.
