CBS and Tony Romo Part Ways After the Milwaukee Arrest

CBS Sports and Tony Romo mutually agreed to part ways on Oct. 2, ending his nine-year run as the network’s lead NFL analyst. J.J. Watt will stay with Jim Nantz and Tracy Wolfson for the rest of the season.

The split closed a leave that began on July 31, eight days after a Milwaukee OWI stop. Romo had not called a game in 2026. Watt already had.

CBS Made the Split Official on Friday

The network put the decision in two short paragraphs. It thanked Romo for nine years and wished him well. It named Watt as the lead analyst through the end of the season and left the No. 2 team untouched, with Ian Eagle, Ross Tucker and Evan Washburn still together.

CBS Sports and Tony Romo have mutually agreed to part ways. We thank Tony for his contributions over the past nine years and wish him the best moving forward. JJ Watt will continue to partner with Jim Nantz and Tracy Wolfson on our lead NFL announce team for the rest of the season. All other teams remain the same, including Ian Eagle, Ross Tucker and Evan Washburn.

CBS Sports, official statement, Oct. 2, 2026

Romo, 46, answered in his own note. He said he was proud of the nine years and that he had treated the analyst job the way he treated playing, with a desire to win. He said he would take a break, “something I’ve never done before,” and put his health and family first before the next job.

He arrived at CBS for the 2017 season, straight into the No. 1 chair beside Nantz, after a 13-year Cowboys career that included four Pro Bowls. League records credit him with 34,183 career passing yards, 248 touchdowns, a 65.3% completion rate and a 97.1 passer rating across 156 games.

The Stop on the I-43 High-Rise Bridge

Milwaukee County deputies pulled Romo over about 6:15 p.m. on July 23 on the high-rise bridge of southbound Interstate 43. He had spent the day at the Wisconsin Amateur Championship in West Bend, where he tied for 73rd, and told the deputy he was headed to see family, including his grandparents. He is a Burlington, Wisconsin, native.

The arrest report said he performed poorly on field sobriety tests. Body-camera video showed him stretching, citing two prior back surgeries, saying he had consumed “zero” drinks, and declining a breath test because lawyers advise against it. Deputies described red, glassy eyes and the odor of alcohol. He was booked about 9:45 p.m. and released about 11 p.m.

Court records later put his blood alcohol concentration at 0.15, against Wisconsin’s 0.08 legal limit, nearly twice the line. He was cited for first-offense OWI, possessing open intoxicants in a motor vehicle, unsafe passing on the right, and refusing an intoxication test after arrest.

FROM THE BRIDGE TO THE EXIT

1. July 23, 2026: Deputies stop Romo on I-43 in Milwaukee and take him in on suspicion of OWI.
2. July 31, 2026: CBS places him on leave until further notice and moves Watt into the lead booth.
3. Aug. 11, 2026: CBS Sports president David Berson tells NFL media day there is no timetable and that brand image is part of the decision.
4. Sept. 1, 2026: Romo pleads no contest to the civil OWI citation. The other three citations are dismissed.
5. Oct. 2, 2026: CBS and Romo announce they have mutually agreed to part ways, 71 days after the stop.

The plea did not send him to jail. Wisconsin treated the count as a first-offense civil OWI. Court records show a $784 fine, a six-month license revocation, a required alcohol assessment, and an ignition interlock on any vehicle he owns, operates or registers for at least a year.

WHAT THE COURT ORDERED

• The fine: $784, with a Nov. 2 pay date attached in the file.
• The license: Driving privileges revoked for six months.
• The interlock: A breath device wired to the ignition for a minimum of one year.
• The program: Completion of an alcohol assessment.

He wrote on Sept. 1 that he owned the failure completely. That post still spoke of a return to CBS “in time.” Friday’s language from both sides did not.

Why Did CBS Wait Until October?

The network did not fire him the week of the stop. It sat him, put Watt next to Nantz, and let the season start. Romo was never mentioned on the Week 1 Packers-Vikings broadcast. Three Sundays of football went by with the old voice gone and no on-air goodbye.

Berson had already framed the choice on Aug. 11 in New York. He called the matter personal and legal for Romo and said he could not speak to that part. He did say the situation was still being assessed, with no timetable and no final decision.

He also said the hundreds of people who work on NFL on CBS needed certainty with the season a few weeks away. “In making this decision, we have to consider the impact on our image and on our brand,” Berson said. “That’s very important to us.” The focus, he added, had to stay on the games and the product, “not on any other factors.”

By then Watt was already planning with Nantz and Wolfson. The arrest gave the network a clean reason to keep him there. The quieter facts were a 10-year deal that still had real money on it, a morals clause that suddenly had a use, and a fill-in who had already worked three games in the chair. Friday made official what those August remarks had pointed toward.

Nantz, Watt and Wolfson Through the Season

Watt did not walk into the job from a studio couch this fall. CBS hired him in 2023 for The NFL Today, kept him there two seasons, then put him with Eagle on the No. 2 game team in 2025. The Romo leave vaulted him to Nantz. Friday locked that assignment through the rest of 2026. CBS has not said who sits in that chair in 2027.

He is 37, a three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, with 114.5 sacks in a 12-year career with the Houston Texans and Arizona Cardinals. In August he did not pretend the path was clean. “It’s not the circumstances you want something like this to happen under,” Watt said. He also called it a chance to work the best games with the lead crew.

CBS NFL BOOTHS FOR THE REST OF 2026

Watt’s early tape with Nantz was uneven in the way new booths often are. He is stronger when a protection breaks or a defensive look is the story, which is the job he played. He is not Romo, whose habit was to call the throw before the ball left the hand. That is the product CBS sold for nine years. It is not the product on the air now.

The No. 2 booth stays put, which is itself a decision. CBS could have shuffled Eagle or Tucker upward. It did not. Watt keeps the marquee, and the rest of the roster holds, including the next assignment on the list, Kansas City at Las Vegas in Week 4 at Allegiant Stadium.

Four Years and $72 Million Were Left

Romo signed a 10-year, $180 million contract with CBS in 2020, a deal that reset what networks pay a game analyst. Four years and $72 million were still on that paper when the arrest happened, about $18 million for this season alone.

THE MONEY STILL ATTACHED

• The 2020 deal: 10 years and $180 million, signed while Romo was already in the Nantz chair.
• Still owed on paper: Four years and $72 million at the time of the stop.
• This season’s slice: About $18 million, which is $180 million divided across 10 years.

People familiar with the talks said the two sides reached a financial settlement before Friday and stayed out of court. The dollar figure was not disclosed. A quiet payout is the usual price of a mutual split on a contract that large, and every dollar below $72 million is a savings for CBS. The public language still called it mutual.

Set that remainder next to the court file and the scale is obvious. The state fined him $784. The network had been paying him like a franchise quarterback to talk about football on Sundays. Wisconsin’s operating-while-intoxicated statute is what put the job in play. The contract is what made the exit expensive.

Romo Wants a Break He Has Never Taken

The Sept. 1 statement is still the fullest account he has given of how he got to that bridge. He wrote that football had shaped nearly every meaningful part of his life, and that CBS had given him a way to stay close to the game after he stopped playing.

This morning, I faced a recent personal failure by pleading no contest to a civil offense for OWI in Wisconsin. I own this completely. Multiple back surgeries ended my career earlier than I expected and left me with constant, debilitating pain. That pain led to a dependence on pain medication, and my efforts to get off those medications led to an over-reliance on alcohol. This is not an excuse. These are my failures, and I take responsibility for them.

Tony Romo, Instagram statement, Sept. 1, 2026

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He said he had taught his three young sons that when you fall short, you stand up. He said he was working with a team of doctors. He asked for privacy. He also asked, then, to be allowed back toward CBS. Friday’s note dropped that hope. The new plan is the break he said he had never taken, then some other job once his health and his family are in order.

The split news reached the public while he was playing in a PGA Tour Q-School pre-qualifier. That is a small, stubborn detail: the analyst CBS had taken off the air was already back on a golf course, in a different kind of qualifier, when the network closed the file.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who Did Tony Romo Replace on CBS in 2017?

Phil Simms, the former New York Giants quarterback, had been Nantz’s partner on the No. 1 team. When Romo retired and joined CBS, Simms moved to the studio on The NFL Today, and Romo walked into the top game chair with no apprenticeship season.

Is a First OWI a Crime in Wisconsin?

Usually no. A first offense under the state’s penalty rules is a civil forfeiture of $150 to $300 unless aggravating facts, such as injury or a child in the car, push it into a criminal count. Jail time in the statute starts at a second offense. Romo’s $784 figure in the court file is the assessed total, not that base forfeiture band.

When Does CBS Next Carry the Super Bowl?

CBS is slated to air Super Bowl in 2028. It does not have the 2027 game, so the first Super Bowl in the Watt-Nantz pairing, if that pairing lasts, would be two seasons out, not this winter.

What if Romo Misses the Nov. 2 Fine?

Court records warn that if the $784 is not paid by Nov. 2, his driver’s license can be suspended for up to one year, on top of the six-month revocation already ordered after the Sept. 1 plea.

Watt’s next game in that chair is Kansas City at Las Vegas. Romo’s CBS calendar is blank. The reckoning that started on I-43 in July is, at the network, complete.