A primer on lots of changes to NFL television coverage. What to expect from every network
This NFL offseason, on the broadcast front, delivered lots of notable news -- including the creation of a Manning brothers Monday night broadcast party, the NFL’s all-time passing leader (Drew Brees) moving from behind center to behind a studio desk, a former Cane (Greg Olsen) landing a coveted job at Fox and a few surprising departures (Rich Gannon and Tony Gonzalez).
Rounding up what to expect this season on the five network NFL rights-holders.
NBC
▪ What’s on: Sunday night games, plus the Cowboys-Buccaneers opener on Thursday, Bills-Saints on Thanksgiving night, two playoff games and the Super Bowl.
▪ What’s new: Brees — the NFL’s all-time leader in yards passing and TD passes — joins the Sunday night studio show, “Football Night in America,” on a set alongside Mike Tirico and Tony Dungy. Rodney Harrison moves to a game-site role on the pregame show.
Maria Taylor — who left her job as ABC’s NBA studio host and ESPN’s lead college football reporter — will sit alongside Chris Simms on a second set on the pre-game show and remains the top candidate to fill the host job when Tirico moves permanently to the booth in 2022.
▪ Notable: Because Tirico’s NBC contract calls for him to take over NFL play-by-play in 2022, this will be Al Michaels’ final season as NBC’s Sunday night announcer, capped off by his 11th and likely final Super Bowl, not far from his home in Los Angeles.
Michaels, perhaps the NFL’s best play-by-play voice ever, turns 77 in November but is still at the top of his game and could opt to continue to work. Amazon’s new Thursday night package is one potential landing spot in 2022.
CBS
▪ What’s on: Mostly Sunday afternoon road games of AFC teams, plus some cross-flexed NFC games, Raiders-Cowboys on Thanksgiving, Dolphins-Jaguars at 9:30 a.m. Oct. 17 from London, and three playoff games.
▪ What’s new: Gannon, CBS’ No. 4 analyst, was surprisingly dropped and replaced by former NFL safety Adam Archuleta, who was promoted from the sixth team, hopping James Lofton.
Also, former NFL kicker Jay Feely will get a regular workload of games, as opposed to a handful; he’s now paired with Spero Dedes on the network’s No. 6 team.
CBS’ broadcast teams, in order: Jim Nantz-Tony Romo, Ian Eagle-Charles Davis, Kevin Harlan-Trent Green, Greg Gumbel-Archuleta, Andrew Catalon-Lofton, Dedes-Feely, Tom McCarthy-Tiki Barber.
▪ Notable: CBS’ play-by-play depth remains very strong, but the decision to replace Gannon — likely salary-driven — wasn’t justified.
Davis was a smart pickup a year ago — he replaced Dan Fouts, who had lost his fastball — but after Romo and Davis, there’s now a clear falloff, though Green and Lofton are serviceable. Archuleta uses a lot of words to say very little, which made his promotion puzzling.
Harlan and Green call Sunday’s Dolphins game, to be seen in 15 percent of the country. Here are the Week 1 regionalization maps.
FOX
▪ What’s on: Mostly Sunday afternoon road games of NFC teams, plus some cross-flexed AFC games (including Dolphins-Bills in Week 2), as well as 10 Thursday night games. Fox also has Bears-Lions on Thanksgiving, Cleveland-Green Bay at 4:30 p.m. on Christmas and four playoff games.
▪ What’s new: Gonzalez left Fox’s studio to focus on his TV and film career. Dick Stockton retired after a long, distinguished career in the industry.
Mark Sanchez left ESPN’s college studio to become an NFL game analyst for Fox. And Olsen, who has been groomed by Fox for several years, will take over the No. 2 game analyst role.
Fox’s announcing teams: Joe Buck-Troy Aikman, Kevin Burkhardt-Olsen, Adam Amin-Mark Schlereth, Kenny Albert-Jonathan Vilma, Chris Myers-Daryl Johnston, Kevin Kugler-Sanchez and Gus Johnson-Aqib Talib.
▪ Notable: Olsen flashed considerable potential as a game analyst on XFL games on Fox and as a fill-in NFL analyst on his bye week in recent years. He considered the full-time move to Fox last summer but instead opted to play one more NFL season, with Seattle, for $7 million.
This will be Fox’s final season carrying Thursday night games; Amazon Prime becomes the exclusive carrier in 2022.
ESPN
▪ What’s on: Monday night games delivered in two forms, one with a traditional ESPN broadcast (Steve Levy, Brian Griese, Louis Riddick) and another with Peyton Manning and Eli Manning commenting over game action on 10 ESPN2 telecasts.
▪ What’s new: Unlike past years, ESPN will carry only one Monday night opener (Ravens-Raiders). But the network adds a Saturday doubleheader on the final weekend of the season; those matchups will be determined in November or December. Kickoff for those games will be 4:15 and 8:15, with ABC simulcasting.
And the Manning/Manning project should be the most interesting new experiment of the season and likely will diminish the audience that chooses to watch the traditional broadcast on ESPN. The Mannings won’t be at the stadium.
“It is kind of like you are watching the game at a bar and me and Eli show up and watch the game with you,” Manning said.
NFL NETWORK
▪ What’s on: All Thursday night games except the opener and Thanksgiving (which are on NBC), plus three other exclusive games: Jets-Falcons in Week 5 from London, a Week 15 Saturday doubleheader (games to be determined) and Indianapolis-Arizona on Christmas night, opposite a Brooklyn-Los Angeles Lakers NBA game on ABC.
All of the Thursday NFL Network games will be on Fox except three early season ones: Giants-Washington, Carolina-Houston and Jacksonville-Cincinnati, as well as San Francisco-Tennessee in Week 16.
▪ Notable: NFL Network won’t carry Thursday games when Amazon Prime gets exclusivity beginning in 2022, but the league will carve out a handful of games that are exclusive to NFL Network, largely to satisfy agreements in place with cable operators.
This story was originally published September 8, 2021 at 4:30 PM.
