A longtime NFL announcer is out of a job ahead of the 2026 regular season.
Greg Papa, the longtime voice of the San Francisco 49ers, has been laid off from his daily radio gig with Cumulus Media-owned KNBR. Papa, who is recovering from a cancer diagnosis, was one of two longtime midday show hosts laid off on Wednesday. He and his co-host, Greg Silver, had hosted “Papa & Silver” from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily.
The show will be replaced by “Fair and Biased with John Lund."
Papa, a 42-year sports broadcasting veteran, has served as the radio play-by-play announcer for the San Francisco 49ers since 2019 under a separate contract with the team. However, he's continuing to recover from a leukemia diagnosis. Thankfully, he's now cancer-free following a successful bone marrow transplant in March. However, earlier this year, he had to be hospitalized for 78 days.
The longtime NFL announcer had said that his radio show would be easier to return to than a 49ers game.
“The radio show would be something that’s obviously much easier to return to,” Papa told the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this week. “I could do it from my house. Doing a football game is a different challenge.”
The Desk had more on the situation.
"Officials at KNBR (680 AM, 104.5 FM) have not publicly commented on the layoffs. Papa declined to comment," they reported.
"Lund previously worked at KNBR after moving from rival 95.7 The Game in 2016. He was let go in November 2024 during a round of cuts that also included longtime afternoon host Tom Tolbert. After leaving KNBR, Lund launched a YouTube channel and later joined Westwood One for a late-night sports show."
Our thoughts continue to be with Papa and his family as he deals with this situation and his healthy.
