WIP nixes Eagles sideline reporter role after laying off Devan Kaney
Merrill Reese and Mike Quick are back, but they won't have a dedicated sideline reporter for the first time in more than 15 years.
Eagles radio broadcasts will sound a little different this year.
While longtime announcers Merrill Reese and Mike Quick will be back for their 29th season together in the booth, 94.1 WIP won’t have a dedicated sideline reporter during Eagles games for the first time in more than 15 years.
WIP is shifting to a more limited role within the broadcast, with Reese and Quick turning to another WIP personality when needed.
It’s assumed Eliot Shorr-Parks, the station’s Eagles beat reporter since 2018, will be the broadcast’s go-to voice for updates, but others could jump in as needed. Shorr-Parks will do a pregame hit from the sideline ahead of Saturday’s preseason game against the Baltimore Ravens.
“The rest of the role is still TBD,” said David Helm, a spokesperson for WIP’s parent company, Audacy.
Devan Kaney, who served as sideline reporter last season and during the Eagles’ Super Bowl LIX run, was laid off by WIP in March as part of company-wide cutbacks by Audacy. She had been with the station since 2022 and also served as an on-air personality, regularly co-hosting WIP’s morning show alongside Joe DeCamara and Jon Ritchie.
Kaney was also a sportscaster at Fox 29, a role she left in June to take a job in Chicago covering the Bears for Fox 32.
“I had a blast working at WIP and sincerely enjoyed my time there,” Kaney told The Inquirer in March. “But as the old saying goes, when one door closes, another opens.”
Former WIP host Howard Eskin was the station’s first Eagles sideline reporter, with his fur coats and colorful headphones becoming a sideline staple. Eskin covered the team since 1975, but said his first season as Eagles sideline reporter wasn’t until 2011.
Eskin abruptly left the station in December 2024 following an incident with a female staffer during a remote broadcast at a Chickie’s & Pete’s in South Philadelphia and replaced by Kaney.
WIP had been broadcasting Eagles games since 1969, with Reese entering his 50th season calling games, by far the longest-tenured announcer in the NFL. The station’s current deal to broadcast Eagles games runs through the 2028 season.
