Dolfan Radio | The Broadcast
By Brad Michaels • October 5, 2026
Joe Rose said he was out. Jimmy Cefalo said he thought he was in. They looked at the picture. That is a radio call.
I listened to the game. Jimmy Cefalo on the play-by-play, Joe Rose beside him, Kim Bokamper on the sideline. The Dolphins are on WQAM. The score was Vikings 15, Dolphins 10. The broadcast was the part of the afternoon that did the job.
Second quarter. Third-and-5. Malik Willis extended it, rolled right, and found Chris Bell. Bell took it in. It looked like a 68-yard touchdown. Then it came off the board. Bell had stepped out of bounds before the ball was thrown, come back in, and caught it. That is an illegal touch. The catch does not count if you left the field and returned before the ball got there.
Jeff Hafley said afterward that Bell got lost on the field, that he is a young guy, and that it was a matter of inches. He also said those inches were the difference in the game. He is right about the rule and right about the player. A receiver has to know where the white line is. Willis made the throw. The score was real until the foot was not.
On the radio it went the way a good booth goes when the picture is that close. Joe said he was out of bounds. Jimmy said he thought he was in. They got a look at the photo. Jimmy said maybe he was out by a toenail. Then he said maybe out by his pinky toe. Joe said he has a big pinky toe.
I am not putting that down as a transcript. That is what I heard, and it is close enough. They disagreed, they looked, and they told you what the picture showed. Then they had the laugh, because a toenail is a funny place for a touchdown to die. They did not turn the loss into a bit. The play was that close. The line fit the play.
Kim Bokamper is the one people forget to name, and he should not be forgotten. He is the sideline reporter on that same feed. He was a Killer B. Pro Bowl in 1979. He started more than a hundred games here, went to two Super Bowls, and has been with this franchise fifty years, from the field to the microphone. Walk of Fame in 2013. When he reports from the sideline he is not reading a card somebody handed him in the tunnel. He played for Shula. He knows what a young receiver looks like when he loses the boundary.
Jimmy has the call. Joe has the argument. Kim has the field. That is a booth. You can get down and distance from a national feed. You get the toe, and the reason the toe matters, from these three.
The play still counts against us. Bell has to know he stepped out. That is on him, and Hafley said so. The men on the radio called it the way a fan needed to hear it. Joe had him out. Jimmy had him in. The picture settled it, by a toe.
Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Kim. Keep calling them.
Week 4, Oct. 4, 2026, U.S. Bank Stadium. Vikings 15, Dolphins 10. The Willis-to-Bell score was ruled an illegal touch after Bell stepped out of bounds and re-entered before the catch. English radio: Jimmy Cefalo, play-by-play; Joe Rose, analyst; Kim Bokamper, sideline. WQAM.