NFL prime-time TV rankings: Bears cap three-game run with best of the bunch

We’re almost there. The stretch of three consecutive prime-time regular-season Bears games — a first for the team since at least 2000 — will end Sunday with a home game against the Buccaneers. Deadline-driven writers and editors, rejoice!

After a bye week, our lives will return to some normalcy with three of the next four games scheduled to kick off at noon on Sundays, and none figure to be flexed. The other will kick off at noon on Thanksgiving.

This three-week run has given us the chance to hear the announcing teams for the NFL’s three prime-time partners — Prime Video, ESPN and NBC — broadcast the Bears. That got me thinking: How should they be ranked?

We love to rank things here (our seventh annual Chicago sports-media power rankings are only three months away), so why not these guys? And fortunately for Bears fans, the NFL saved the best for last.

1. Mike Tirico & Cris Collinsworth, NBC’s “Sunday Night Football”

Tirico is the best play-by-play broadcaster in the business. He’s one of the few national announcers who sounds like he has been calling your team’s games for years. His ability to absorb tons of information and recall it at the perfect time is uncanny.

For TV, his amount of play-by-play is just right, and he can make it memorable, like he did when Caleb Williams connected with Cole Kmet in the final half-minute of the playoff game against the Rams: “They’ve done it again! Unbelievable! … I don’t believe this team.” Perhaps he’ll have another in store for the game Sunday against the Buccaneers.

Reviews of Collinsworth run the gamut — did you know there’s an “I hate Cris Collinsworth” Facebook page? — but I enjoy him. His football IQ is off the charts, he has a great rapport with Tirico and he’s good for a one-liner now and then. Dare I bring up “double doink”? Sorry.

2. Joe Buck & Troy Aikman, ESPN’s “Monday Night Football”

These two have been in the news a lot lately because they’re on the outs after 25 years. ESPN gave Buck a new contract but not Aikman, and the situation came to a head with a verbal confrontation in the booth before a game last month. Aikman later said he’ll be a free agent after the season, which ESPN will cap with its first Super Bowl. Should be quite a run-up.

Whatever the reasons for their impending divorce, Buck and Aikman continue to put on a professional broadcast. They even seemed to like each other during the Bears-Seahawks game. Buck always has been solid, and Aikman has strong opinions.

That said, I don’t always like Buck’s staccato calls, and Aikman can sound holier than thou. Other than those quibbles, they’ve stabilized a once-turbulent booth — until Aikman leaves, that is.

3. Al Michaels & Kirk Herbstreit, Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football”

Michaels is the greatest play-by-play announcer of all time, but that time is not now. Though his voice brings gravitas to a broadcast, he’s slower on the draw and short on emotion. It’s uncertain whether Michaels, 81, will return next season.

As for Herbstreit, it always has felt like he drops in to call an NFL game amid all of his college football work, which includes “College GameDay” and ESPN’s top game of the week. How can he not be spread too thin? Sometimes it sounds that way.

The two don’t exactly click, either. What saves the broadcast is Prime’s outstanding production, from video quality to innovative graphic elements. Plus, you can buy stuff!