List of NFL on NBC commentator pairings
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The first name that's slated is the play-by-play man while the color commentator or commentators are slated second and sideline reporters, if used, are slated last. 1960s ====== *From 1965-1969, NBC covered the American Football League. #Curt Gowdy/Paul Christman #Jim Simpson/George Ratterman #Charlie Jones/Elmer Angsman #Herb Carneal/Andy Robustelli ====== #Curt Gowdy/Paul Christman #Jim Simpson/George Ratterman #Charlie Jones/Elmer Angsman #Lou Boda/Lee Grosscup *Simpson and Ratterman would provide radio coverage for Super Bowl I. ====== #Curt Gowdy or Charlie Jones/Paul Christman or Kyle Rote (Week 12) #Jim Simpson/Kyle Rote #Charlie Jones/George Ratterman #Jay Randolph or Lou Boda/Elmer Angsman *Week 4 of the 1967 AFL season coincided with the race for the American League pennant. NBC decided to focus on their baseball coverage instead of covering the early games; thus resulting in Curt Gowdy calling the Twins-Red Sox game; Jim Simpson calling the Angels-Tigers game); while the AFL schedule resulted in the two early games (Broncos-Oilers and Dolphins-Jets games not being televised with another Chargers-Bills game being a locally televised game airing only in San Diego on then-NBC affiliate KOGO (now ABC affiliate KGTV). ====== #Curt Gowdy or Charlie Jones/Kyle Rote or Al DeRogatis #Jim Simpson/Al DeRogatis, Elmer Angsman, Kyle Rote or George Ratterman #Charlie Jones/Al DeRogatis, George Ratterman or Elmer Angsman #Jay Randolph/Elmer Angsman, George Ratterman or Chris Burford #Bill Enis/George Ratterman, Al DeRogatis, Chris Burford or Elmer Angsman #Len Dillon/Chris Burford (Week 10, Kansas City-Cincinnati) #Bill Mazer/George Ratterman (Week 10, Miami-Buffalo) Curt Gowdy, Kyle Rote, Jim Simpson and Al DeRogatis would work double-duty in Week 13: *Gowdy and Rote: Houston-Kansas City on Thursday, Miami-NY Jets on Sunday *Simpson: Buffalo-Oakland (Thursday w/Al DeRogatis), Cincinnati-Boston (Sunday w/Elmer Angsman) *DeRogatis: Buffalo-Oakland, San Diego-Denver (Sunday w/Charlie Jones) *The trio of Gowdy, Rote and DeRogatis would each also work two games in Week 1. All three teamed to call Cincinnati-San Diego on Friday night, DeRogatis would team with Charlie Jones for Boston-Buffalo on Sunday, and Gowdy and Rote would call Kansas City-Houston on Monday night. The trio would also broadcast Super Bowl III. *Late in the season, there were a number of double-duty weeks by announcers. In Week 14, Simpson and DeRogatis called Buffalo-Houston on Saturday, then the following day Simpson called Denver-Oakland while DeRogatis called Cincinnati-NY Jets. The following week, DeRogatis again pulled double-duty, calling Kansas City-Denver on Saturday (with Charlie Jones), then joining Jim Simpson for Oakland-San Diego the next day. Jones called Boston-Houston with George Ratterman also that week. #1 Announce Team Notes: *DeRogatis called The Heidi Game with Curt Gowdy in Week 11 (Rote joined Jim Simpson for San Diego-Buffalo). *Charlie Jones substituted for Gowdy in Week 5 (Boston-Oakland), while Gowdy called Game 4 of the 1968 World Series. ====== #Curt Gowdy, Bill Enis or Charlie Jones/Kyle Rote #Jim Simpson or Charlie Jones/Al DeRogatis #Charlie Jones, Ross Porter or /George Ratterman or Dave Kocourek #Bill Enis/Dave Kocourek, George Ratterman or Johnny Morris #Jay Randolph/Johnny Morris, Gordy Soltau or Dave Kocourek #Ross Porter or Dave Martin/Willie Davis #/Dave Kocourek *After this season, Al DeRogatis and Kyle Rote swapped positions; resulting in DeRogatis being the #1 color commentator and Rote being the #2 analyst. ===1971 1979 #Dick Enberg/Merlin Olsen or Bob Trumpy (Trumpy filled in for Olsen during the Oakland-Philadelphia regular season game) #Don Criqui/John Brodie #Charlie Jones or Bob Costas/Len Dawson #Sam Nover or Mike Adamle or Merle Harmon/Bob Trumpy or Gene Washington #Jay Randolph, Bob Costas, Marv Albert or Mike Adamle/Gene Washington #Merle Harmon/Carl Eller #Marv Albert, Mike Adamle, Bob Costas, Jay Randolph or Merle Harmon/Mike Haffner #Marv Albert, Jay Randolph or Mike Adamle/Dave Rowe *The December 20 game between the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins was broadcast without announcers, a one-time experiment by NBC executive producer Don Ohlmeyer. ===1981 ===1988 1990s 1990 #Dick Enberg or Charlie Jones/Bill Walsh #Marv Albert or Jim Donovan/Paul Maguire #Don Criqui/Bob Trumpy or #Charlie Jones, Don Criqui or Fred Roggin/Todd Christensen #Joel Meyers/ #Tom Hammond or Jim Donovan/Joe Namath #Jim Donovan or Joel Meyers/Cris Collinsworth #Fred Roggin/Jim Laslavic ===1991 Meanwhile, for Week 1 Marv Albert substituted as host of NFL Live!; as regular host Bob Costas along with O.J. Simpson; play-by-play broadcaster Tom Hammond and analyst Todd Christensen were assigned to cover the world track and field championships in Tokyo, Japan. 1992 #Dick Enberg or Tom Hammond/Phil Simms/Paul Maguire/Jim Gray #Marv Albert, Tom Hammond, Charlie Jones or Joel Meyers/Randy Cross/Jim Kelly (Week 7) #Charlie Jones or Dan Hicks or Jim Donovan/Bob Trumpy/Jim Mora (Weeks 3, 7), Randy Cross (Weeks 6, 11) or Jim Kelly (Week 8) #Tom Hammond, Dan Hicks or Joel Meyers/Jim Kelly/Paul Maguire (Weeks 10, 16) or James Lofton (Week 11) #Don Criqui or Dan Hicks/Jim Mora/Randy Cross (Week 17) #Mike Breen or Jim Donovan/James Lofton #Dan Hicks, Joel Meyers or Jim Donovan/Beasley Reece #Bob Fitzgerald/Jim Laslavic (Week 9) *Following Week 3, Marv Albert was fired by NBC because of sexual assault charges pressed against him. Albert, also the voice of NBA on NBC at the time, was replaced in both venues. Tom Hammond would eventually move up to the #2 team, while Dan Hicks would primarily call games with Hammond's old partner, Jim Kelly. *The duo of Mike Breen and James Lofton would call many NY Jets games, with WNBC-TV sports anchor and former NFL '82 and 83 host Len Berman as sideline reporter: Week 1 (at Seattle), Week 5 (at Cincinnati), Week 6 (at Indianapolis), Week 8 (vs. New England), Week 10 (vs. Baltimore), and Week 15 (vs. Indianapolis). Additionally, Berman was a sideline reporter for other Jets games not called by Breen/Lofton, as well as the Week 3 Baltimore-NY Giants game (notably Marv Albert's final NFL game for NBC, as noted above). *As in 1996, NBC used three-man booths during the AFC Divisional Playoffs. Bob Trumpy joined Tom Hammond and Randy Cross on the New England at Pittsburgh game. While Enberg, Simms, and Maguire called the Denver at Kansas City game. *Three-man booths were near-prevalent in the aftermath of Marv Albert's firing. Below is a list of games with three-man broadcast teams outside of NBC's #1 team of Enberg, Simms and Maguire. - Week 3: Seattle-Indianapolis (Jones, Trumpy, Mora) - Week 6: Kansas City-Miami (Jones, Trumpy, Cross) - Week 7: Buffalo-New England (Hammond, Cross, Kelly); Cincinnati-Tennessee (Jones, Trumpy, Mora) - Week 8: Pittsburgh-Cincinnati (Hicks, Trumpy, Kelly) - Week 10: Miami-Buffalo (Hicks, Maguire, Kelly) - Week 11: Kansas City-Jacksonville (Hicks, Kelly, Lofton); NY Jets-Miami (Jones, Trumpy, Cross) - Week 16: Jacksonville-Buffalo (Meyers, Maguire, Kelly) - Week 17: Indianapolis-Minnesota (Criqui, Mora, Cross) *This was the final season of NBC's coverage of the AFC, and final coverage of the NFL until 2006. CBS took over AFC coverage the following year. Greg Gumbel would leave NBC, and would team up with Phil Simms as the #1 announcing team at CBS. Also at CBS, Randy Cross would become the #2 analyst, Sam Wyche would leave the pregame show to become the #3 analyst, and Don Criqui and Beasley Reece would reunite for the 1998 season. Dick Enberg would stay with NBC for another two years before joining CBS in 2000, where he would be the #2 announcer until 2005. Cris Collinsworth also left NBC to join Fox NFL Sunday. 2000s *Beginning in 2006, NBC returned to the NFL for the first time since 1997 (when they last had the AFC package) to broadcast Sunday night games. NBC replaced ESPN as the Sunday night broadcaster. 2006 #Al Michaels/John Madden/Andrea Kremer #Tom Hammond/Cris Collinsworth/Bob Neumeier (Wild Card Saturday) 2007 #Al Michaels/John Madden/Andrea Kremer #Bryant Gumbel/Cris Collinsworth (Patriots-Giants game) #Tom Hammond/Cris Collinsworth/Bob Neumeier (Wild Card Saturday) 2008 #Al Michaels/John Madden or Cris Collinsworth/Andrea Kremer #*During Week 7 (Seattle at Tampa Bay), Madden was given an off-week to alleviate a hectic coast-to-coast bus travel schedule which would have taken him from Jacksonville to San Diego to Tampa in 3 weeks. #Tom Hammond/Cris Collinsworth/Tiki Barber (Wild Card Saturday) 2009 #Al Michaels/Cris Collinsworth/Andrea Kremer #Tom Hammond/Joe Theismann and Joe Gibbs/Tiki Barber (Wild Card Saturday) *Cris Collinsworth was promoted to the lead color commentator slot following the retirement of John Madden. This marks the second time Collinsworth had replaced Madden as a lead commentator, getting bumped to the top slot on Fox coverage alongside Joe Buck and Troy Aikman following Madden's departure for Monday Night Football. *The announcement of Joe Gibbs as one of the color commentators for the Wild Card Saturday playoff games marked Gibbs' return to ; where following his first retirement from the Redskins, he served as an occasional commentator on regional coverage during the 1993 NFL season before becoming a panelist on /NFL on NBC between the 1994 season until NBC lost NFL coverage after Super Bowl XXXII. 2010s 2010 #Al Michaels/Cris Collinsworth/Andrea Kremer #Tom Hammond/Mike Mayock/Alex Flanagan (Wild Card Saturday) *Beginning with the 2010 season NBC elected to use the Notre Dame football broadcast team as its second Wild Card Weekend broadcast team, as Mike Mayock and Alex Flanagan joined Tom Hammond. 2011 #Al Michaels/Cris Collinsworth/Michele Tafoya #Tom Hammond/Mike Mayock/Alex Flanagan (Wild Card Saturday) #Dan Hicks/Mike Mayock/Doug Flutie/Alex Flanagan/Randy Moss (Pro Bowl) 2012 #Al Michaels/Cris Collinsworth/Michele Tafoya #Dan Hicks/Mike Mayock (Wild Card Saturday) Dan Hicks filled in for Al Michaels on the preseason matchup between the Indianapolis Colts and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Michaels took some time off during that game after anchoring NBC's daytime coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Hicks also replaced Tom Hammond on the Notre Dame broadcast team at this point. 2013 #Al Michaels/Cris Collinsworth/Michele Tafoya #Dan Hicks/Mike Mayock/Alex Flanagan (Wild Card Saturday) *This was the last wildcard playoff doubleheader on NBC for the foreseeable future. For 2014, ESPN aired 1 wild card playoff game, and from 2015 onward ABC will simulcast ESPN's presentation of the Wild Card playoff game. NBC will only air 1 wildcard playoff game and will air 1 divisional playoff game. 2014-2015 # Al Michaels/Cris Collinsworth/Michele Tafoya 2016 # Al Michaels or Mike Tirico (weeks 11-12, 16)/Cris Collinsworth/Michele Tafoya (Sunday Night Football) or Heather Cox (Thursday Night Football). (Cox joins Tafoya for the NFL Playoffs) # Mike Tirico/Doug Flutie and Tony Dungy/Heather Cox (weeks 15 and 16) NBC often mixed these commentator groupings for 2016. Under league contract, Michaels and Collinsworth called all of the games in the Thursday Night Football package that aired on NBC along with most Sunday nights. In general, Tafoya served as sideline reporter for Sunday games and Cox for Thursday games, with both sharing duties through the playoffs. Tirico called play-by-play for secondary games in weeks 15 and 16, and filled in for Michaels for SNF assignments in Weeks 11 and 12. 2017 # Al Michaels/Cris Collinsworth/Michele Tafoya (Sunday Night Football) # Mike Tirico/Cris Collinsworth/Heather Cox (Thursday Night Football) # Mike Tirico/Kurt Warner/Heather Cox (Christmas Game/Thursday Night Specials) 2018-present # Al Michaels/Cris Collinsworth/Michele Tafoya/Terry McAulay (Sunday Night Football) # Mike Tirico/Tony Dungy/Rodney Harrison/Michele Tafoya (SNF Thanksgiving Day game) Surrogate professional football programs on NBC XFL In 2001, NBC carried broadcasts of the XFL. The pregame show, XFL Gameday, was hosted by radio shock jocks Opie and Anthony from The Opie and Anthony Show. The show did not air nationwide and was canceled after four weeks. There was no studio halftime or postgame show, the latter due to a schedule conflict with Saturday Night Live. Halftime shows consisted mostly of live look-ins in the player locker rooms (with the exception of Week 6, where a comedy sketch purporting to go into the cheerleaders’ locker rooms instead aired). NBC used two broadcast teams for its XFL broadcast coverage. Matt Vasgersian was teamed with then-Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura, with Fred Roggin and Mike Adamle as sideline reporters, for Week 1, and again from week 6 through the rest of the season, on its nationally televised contests. NBC also regionally televised a second game, which used World Wrestling Federation announcers Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler (under their WWF nicknames "J.R." and "The King" for week 1), along with Jonathan Coachman. Ross and Vasgersian swapped places from Weeks 2 through 5, after which Lawler (who knew nothing about football) left the WWF and the XFL; from that point onward, Ross and Dick Butkus called the remainder of the regional telecasts, and Chris Wragge replaced Roggin for week 6. Arena Football League From 2003-2006, NBC covered Arena Football League games. The pre-game, halftime, and post-game studio show was anchored by Al Trautwig and analyst Glenn Parker since its inception. In 2003, Michael Irvin also provided studio analysis, but that role was subsequently filled with guest analysts, including Ray Bentley, Danny White, Tommy Maddox, and Kurt Warner. Game commentary was provided by two major teams, with the lead consisting of play-by-play announcer Tom Hammond and analyst Pat Haden, with sideline reporter Lewis Johnson (this team, at the time, was also the announcing team for Notre Dame Football on NBC). The other included Bob Papa (play-by-play), Ray Bentley (analyst) and Marty Snider (sideline reporter). Additional talent included (often in different pairings) play-by-play announcers Eli Gold, Bill Weber, and Allen Bestwick, as well as color commentators Mike Pawlawski and Charles Davis, and sideline reporter Steve Wrigley.
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