{"id":650328,"date":"2026-01-03T09:30:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T09:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/650328\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T09:30:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T09:30:28","slug":"greg-papa-returning-to-booth-to-call-49ers-vs-seahawks-finale-nbc-sports-bay-area-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/650328\/","title":{"rendered":"Greg Papa returning to booth to call 49ers vs. Seahawks finale \u2013 NBC Sports Bay Area & California"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Voice of the 49ers, Greg Papa, expects to be back where he belongs Saturday night, calling the action in the team’s regular-season finale<\/a> at Levi’s Stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am planning on coming back tomorrow,\u201d Papa informed NBC Sports Bay Area on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Papa was diagnosed with leukemia<\/a> in mid-July. He has not been behind the mic for any of the 49ers’ games this season as he focused on his treatment and regaining his health.<\/p>\n

Papa will rejoin analyst Tim Ryan to call the 49ers’ game against the Seattle Seahawks on KNBR, the team\u2019s flagship station. Ryan this week referred to this showdown against the Seahawks as, \u201cThe brawl for it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The winner of the 49ers-Seahawks game will win the NFC West title and earn home-field advantage and a first-round bye in the NFL playoffs. The 49ers enter the final game of the 2025 NFL season with a 12-4 record, while the Seahawks are 13-3. Both teams already have clinched spots in the NFC playoffs.<\/p>\n

Papa originally planned on returning to the booth to call the action in the 49ers\u2019 Week 17 game against the Chicago Bears. However, Papa felt he needed more time<\/a> to rest and regain his strength after feeling ill late in the week.<\/p>\n

Papa is a legendary broadcaster, who also has called games for the Warriors, Raiders, Athletics and Giants during his storied Bay Area career of nearly four decades. He was hired to be the 49ers\u2019 radio play-by-play announcer in 2019.<\/p>\n

His signature call of \u201cTouchdown, San-Fran-cis-COOOOOO!\u201d quickly became embraced — and often imitated — by the fan base. And Papa is always eager to deliver the vocal goods, much to the delight of the 49ers Faithful at team events.<\/p>\n

Of course, the only thing better for 49ers fans than hearing Papa call the action would be to hear him test his vocal chords and belt out his iconic phrase a few times during Saturday night’s game.<\/p>\n

Download and follow the 49ers Talk Podcast<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Voice of the 49ers, Greg Papa, expects to be back where he belongs Saturday night, calling the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,7,50337,6,1161,252,2624,2623],"class_list":["post-650328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-san-francisco-49ers","tag-49ers","tag-football","tag-greg-papa","tag-nfl","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-sanfrancisco","tag-sanfrancisco49ers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115830471032774444","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}