Wes Durham has called a Final Four and an Orange Bowl. He has played golf at Augusta National and St. Andrew’s. He’s no stranger to the rodeo, at least figuratively speaking. Dave Archer has been associated with the NFL either as a player or broadcaster for most of his adult life.
However, when the esteemed Falcons radio broadcast team duo walk into Houston’s NRG Stadium on Sunday, it will be the first time either has been to a Super Bowl. It’s by design.
“We came so close in 2013,” Durham said. “That’s when Dave said it the first time (that he wouldn’t attend a Super Bowl unless he was calling it). I thought to myself, Yeah, I’m probably there with you. I don’t want to go unless I’m broadcasting the game.”
Paired together since the 2004 season, Archer and Durham didn’t play it cool when describing the magnitude of calling a Super Bowl for the first time. Archer’s fall weekends are spent calling ACC games on Saturdays and the Falcons on Sundays. This is a bit more than another game in another stadium.
“It just feels like you had to earn your right to be there,” said Archer, 54.
Durham, 51, has been named the Georgia sportscaster of the year 10 times. He is in Georgia Tech’s athletics hall of fame. This is a career moment.
“Absolutely,” Durham said. “It’s one of those things, if you get in this business, you don’t ever think you’re going to do a Super Bowl.”
Falcons fans, many of whom will eschew the audio of the Fox television broadcast to hear Durham and Archer on 92.9 The Game (also available on Sirius XM), would want it no other way. The excellence of the Archer-Durham pairing is revealed every Sunday, their passion, skill and knowledge resonating in each broadcast. Likewise, their chemistry, forged by a couple hundred games together, mutual respect and a friendship that extends beyond the booth, makes for an inviting listen.
Archer, a former Falcons quarterback, has a remarkable gift for instantly recognizing and communicating why a play failed or succeeded with no need for instant replay. Durham does the nuts and bolts — down and distance, score, time remaining — and smoothly captures the excitement of the environment while offering context, humor and mind-boggling recall.
“I think anybody that listens to the broadcasts knows that we’re wrapped up and we’re living and dying with the team as well,” Archer said.
As such, it’s not just a professional highlight to call the Super Bowl, but a personal one, as well, documenting the summiting of a team they’ve invested themselves in for more than a decade. They know well the journey that the Falcons have traveled to reach this point — Dan Quinn is the fifth coach, counting an interim, that they’ve worked with. As someone who has developed a friendship with quarterback Matt Ryan, is at the team’s Flowery Branch headquarters three days a week and took shots last offseason for defending Ryan and the team, Archer has had a front-row seat.
“It’s kind of neat to see that come full circle now to where the last laugh is with these guys,” Archer said.
Like Falcons fans, they’ve loved the thrill ride that the season has been, one that began with low expectations and ends at the top, with the team seeming to build each week.
“The (NFC Championship) game ended at such a point where Dave was asking me with six minutes left, ‘Can you smell it?’” Durham said.
Durham captured the moment when the clock expired.
“And the ballgame is over,” Durham said, intoning with authority and cadence. “Dan Quinn, in year two, has taken Atlanta to the Super Bowl. And today at the dome, the Falcons do it in convincing fashion, 44 to 21, and I’d say they closed this house in high style today.”
Both are quick to share the credit and give thanks — to team owner Arthur Blank, CBS Radio Atlanta vice president and market manager Rick Caffey and 92.9 program director Terry Fox. Durham and Archer have had the same booth crew — engineer Miller Pope, producer Beau Morgan, spotter Chris Capo and stats man Greg Campbell — for about 10 years, Durham said, and sideline reporter John Michaels joined in 2011.
“That type of stuff counts,” Durham said.
They’re approaching the game like they do any other, doing prep work during the week, knowing names, numbers, schemes, story arcs and the like.
“You’ve got to put in perspective a little bit, but then, to be honest with you, once the game starts, all the elements of the game become the story,” Durham said. “If you try to wrap up the pageantry of the event, you’re wasting your time.”
Durham, though, is aware that, should the Falcons win, his call at game’s end may be preserved for a long, long time. He’s not sure what he would say.
“All the great calls Munson had, all the great calls Al had, I don’t know that anybody ever scripted anything,” he said, referencing local broadcasting legends Larry Munson (Georgia) and Al Ciraldo (Georgia Tech). “And I won’t script it, I guarantee that.”
With such buildup, they expect to be nervous. They may not have ever been to a Super Bowl, but they don’t need to have it explained.
“To actually be there and witness it with our team in the game is going to be pretty cool,” Archer said.
