It was time. Anyone who listened to him last year could tell he was significantly worse than previously. He’s always been bad about not keeping the listener informed about simple things like time/down/distance but people overlooked it because he was so good at other aspects of it, but last year, following his recovery from being sick, was noticeably worse. From what I’ve been told by people that would seem to know better than the average fan, UA told him before making it public and, out of respect, wanted to give him the opportunity to retire, and he refused.

Chris Stewart has been with UA for like 20yrs, he’s fantastic at what he does and has certainly “paid his dues”. It was time, and UA gave him the chance to bow out gracefully, and he refused. Not sure what anyone expects UA to have done differently. Apparently Eli expected to call games until he fell over dead and anything less wasn’t going to be good enough for him.