Beginnings through the 1950s

NBC's coverage of the National Football League (which has aired under numerous program titles and formats) actually goes back to the beginnings of the network's relationship with the league in 1939, when its New York City flagship station, then known as W2XBS (now WNBC) aired the first televised professional football game^[2] between the Philadelphia Eagles and the now-defunct Brooklyn Dodgers football team. Even before this, in 1934, NBC Radio's Blue Network had carried the Detroit Lions' inaugural Thanksgiving game nationwide.

By 1955, NBC became the television home to the NFL Championship Game, the precursor to the Super Bowl, paying US$100,000 to the league for the rights. The network had taken over the broadcast rights from the DuMont Television Network, which had struggled to give the league a national audience (NBC's coverage of proto-Canadian Football League games from the year prior was more widely available at the time) and was on the brink of failure; the NFL's associations with NBC (as well as with CBS) proved to be a boost to the league's popularity. For the 1957 NFL Championship Game, Van Patrick and Ken Coleman split a half of the play-by-play duties and Red Grange, normally on play-by-play for Chicago Bears games on CBS, assumed the color commentator role for this game. The 1958 NFL Championship Game, played at Yankee Stadium, between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants went into sudden death overtime. This game, since known as the "Greatest Game Ever Played", was seen by many throughout the country and is credited with increasing the popularity of professional football in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Chris Schenkel called the first half while Chuck Thompson called the second half and overtime.

NBC televised the NFL Championship Game until 1963. The contract for the title game was separate than the regular season contracts held by CBS, which started televising NFL games in 1956. Prior to 1962, each team had its own individual television contract. (This was in contrast to the American Football League as well as established practice in college football, both of which forced all of their members to participate in a collective television contract. As the legality of such a collective contract was still in question at the time, and would eventually be declared illegal in 1984, the NFL did not pursue such a contract until Congress explicitly allowed for the NFL to do so, with conditions, in the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961.) NBC held individual team contracts with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Colts in 1959, 1960 and 1961. While the games were blacked out in Pittsburgh and Baltimore, they were broadcast on other NBC stations. In some cases, the game broadcast was seen on CBS in the visiting team's home region. NBC covered eleven games in 1960 and 13 games in 1961 in a "Game of the Week" format. NBC would take one week off due to its coverage of the World Series. During this era, NBC broadcast pre-recorded and edited hour-long broadcasts of NFL games in the off-season under the title Best of Pro Football.

During this period, NBC also held the rights to the Pro Bowl (which was also under a separate contract from the NFL's regular season games and the NFL Championship Game) via the Los Angeles newspapers' charities. NBC televised the Pro Bowl following the 1951 and 1952 seasons and again from the 1957 to 1964 seasons. The 1957 game was offered to NBC, then CBS. Both declined to carry the game. ABC was then offered to televise and accepted, but could not gain enough clearance of affiliates in time to make it a profitable venture. Thus they also dropped out and the game was not televised.

1960s

At the start of the 1960s, 10 of the NFL's 13 NFL teams (including the brand new Dallas Cowboys) were aligned with CBS, two joined forces with NBC (the aforementioned Colts and the Steelers) and one (the Cleveland Browns) rejoined its partner, the syndicated Sports Network. NBC during this time period, employed Lindsey Nelson and Frankie Albert as their top broadcasting crew.

In Week 1 of the 1960 season, the Washington-Baltimore game was also seen on NBC affiliates in St. Louis, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Dallas-Ft. Worth and Detroit. For the following week, NBC's affiliates in Philadelphia, Dallas-Ft. Worth and Washington also carried Chicago-Baltimore game. There was no telecast in Week 3 as NBC was televising Game 4 of the Pirates-Yankees World Series. Week 4 saw NBC's Green Bay and Milwaukee affiliates joining in on the Los Angeles-Baltimore game. For Week 5, NBC's New York affiliate also carried the Pittsburgh-Washington game. In Week 6, NBC's Philadelphia affiliate was a part of NBC's telecast of the Green Bay Packers-Steelers game. For the following week, Chicago's NBC station picked up NBC's Green Bay-Baltimore telecast. The San Francisco Bay Area also tuned into NBC's coverage of Baltimore-Chicago in Week 8. Meanwhile, Channel 2 in Baltimore provide their own coverage locally of the Colts-Bears game, with Chuck Thompson and Bailey Goss on the call. In Week 9, WBAL in Baltimore also carried the Cleveland-Pittsburgh game. On Cleveland's own syndicated network, the game was called by Ken Coleman and Jimmy Dudley. On Thanksgiving Day, 1960, NBC's Green Bay, Milwaukee, Detroit and Los Angeles affiliates joined in on their San Francisco-Baltimore telecast. In Week 11, NBC's Pittsburgh's station was also part of the coverage of the Detroit-Baltimore game. For the following week, NBC's St. Louis, San Francisco and Green Bay stations carried the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh game. In Week 13, NBC's Green Bay, Milwaukee, Los Angeles and Dallas/Ft. Worth affiliates all joined in for NBC's Pittsburgh-St. Louis telecast.

On April 5, 1961, NBC was awarded a two-year contract (1961–62) for the radio and television rights to the NFL Championship Game,^[3] paying US$615,000 annually for the rights ($300,000 of which was to go directly into the NFL Player Benefit Plan). On May 23, 1963, NBC was awarded exclusive network broadcast rights for the 1963 NFL Championship Game for $926,000. For the 1960 NFL Championship Game, there was an early kickoff due to NFL officials preparing for potential of sudden death overtime. Franklin Field had no lights and sunset would normally occur around 4:35 p.m. at this time of year in Philadelphia.

NBC continued to televise 13 Sundays involving either the Colts and Steelers (the odd week was when NBC had the World Series) in 1961. This time, Lindsay Nelson was joined by Chuck Thompson on commentary. In Week 1, NBC's Los Angeles-Baltimore telecast was seen nationally except in NFL markets and the CBS Los Angeles network region (which featured Bob Kelley and Gil Stratton on commentary). The exception to this would be if teams did not play on Sunday, then the NBC affiliate could carry their games in those markets as well. So if the Colts or Steelers (in this case the Steelers) were not on NBC and they were on the road, then an ad hoc regional network would be permitted to carry the game, either using its own crew or picking up the CBS feed and crew. In Week 2, NBC's affiliates in Chicago and Los Angeles also plugged into NBC's telecast of the Detroit-Baltimore game. In Week 3, the Baltimore-Green Bay game was televised locally to Baltimore on WBAL 11. Apparently if Baltimore viewers wanted to see the World Series, they would have had to choose between WRC 4 in Washington or WGAL 8 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. As previously mentioned, there was no NFL telecast on NBC due to coverage of Game 4 of the World Series. In Week 11, NBC's Green Bay, Milwaukee and Detroit affiliates were added to their St. Louis-Pittsburgh telecast. For Week 13, the telecast of the Pittsburgh-Washington game included Channel 4 in Los Angeles and Channel 11 in Baltimore. NBC's Week 14 telecast of the Pittsburgh-St. Louis included channel 4 in the Bay Area and channel 11 in Baltimore.

At the end of the 1964 season, NBC would carry the Pro Bowl one last time as the game was still the property of the Los Angeles Newspaper Charities. CBS not only won the deal to carry the NFL Championship Game starting in 1964 (which had been at NBC since 1955), but it would also begin televising the Pro Bowl after the 1965 season as the NFL took control of the all-star tilt. NBC's 1965 Pro Bowl telecast was aired in color and featured Ken Coleman and Gordy Soltau on the call.

1970s

In 1970, after the NFL and AFL completed their merger, NBC signed a contract with the league to broadcast games from the American Football Conference (AFC). After this season, Al DeRogatis and Kyle Rote swapped positions; resulting in DeRogatis being the #1 color commentator alongside Curt Gowdy and Rote being the #2 analyst alongside Jim Simpson.

On January 17, 1971, NBC's telecast of Super Bowl V between the Baltimore Colts and Dallas Cowboys was viewed in an estimated 23,980,000 homes, the largest household audience ever for a one-day sports event. The game was called by play-by-play announcer Gowdy and color commentator Rote. Although the Orange Bowl was sold out for the event, unconditional blackout rules in the NFL prohibited the live telecast from being shown in the Miami area on WCKT. The blackout was challenged in Miami-Dade District Court by attorney Ellis Rubin, and although the judge denied Rubin's request since he felt he did not have the power to overrule the NFL, he agreed with Rubin's argument that the blackout rule was unnecessary for the Super Bowl.^[5]

On Christmas Day, December 25, 1971, NBC telecast the AFC Divisional Playoff between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins. The contest, the final Chiefs game ever played in Kansas City's Municipal Stadium, started around 3 p.m. Central Time. The game lasted well into the evening, delaying some Christmas dinners around the country as the contest became the longest-running game in NFL history, lasting 82:40 of game time. In the second overtime period, Miami converted a field goal to win the thrilling contest, 27–24. Curt Gowdy and Al DeRogatis called the memorable game for NBC.

On January 14, 1973, NBC's telecast of Super Bowl VII between the Miami Dolphins and Washington Redskins was watched by approximately 75 million viewers. NBC's telecast of Super Bowl IX between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Minnesota Vikings had an audience of approximately 78 million viewers. The 1973 game, called by Curt Gowdy and Al DeRogatis, was the first Super Bowl to be televised live in the city where it was being played. Despite the league's unconditional blackout rules that normally would have prohibited the live telecast from being shown locally, the NFL allowed the game to be telecast in the Los Angeles area on KNBC on an experimental basis when all tickets for the game were sold. The league then changed its blackout rules the following season to allow games sold out at least 72 hours in advance to be televised in the host market. No subsequent Super Bowl has ever been blacked out in the city it has been played in, since all of them have been sold out.

On December 16, 1973, NBC cameras were there to cover O. J. Simpson as he rushed for 2,000 yards in one season. On that particular day, Simpson's Buffalo Bills would go on to beat the New York Jets at Shea Stadium. Two days before he was assigned to call 1973's regular-season finale between the Houston Oilers and Cincinnati Bengals, Bill Enis died from a heart attack at the age of 39. Al Michaels was brought in to replace Enis in the booth with Dave Kocourek. 1974 would mark the final season for what would be Al Michaels' first stint with NBC. That season, Michaels called six-tier games with Mike Haffner. Also in 1974, Don Meredith would come over to NBC from ABC's Monday Night Football. He would join Curt Gowdy and Al DeRogatis for the playoffs and Super Bowl IX. He also worked that year's Thanksgiving game between Denver and Detroit. In Week 13, he joined Jim Simpson and John Brodie to call the Cleveland-Dallas game.

In 1975, because of NBC's coverage of Game 2 of the World Series between the Cincinnati Reds and Boston Red Sox, NBC's 1:00 p.m. NFL telecasts were canceled.^[6][7] All games except for the New England Patriots–Cincinnati Bengals match were picked up by local stations in the markets of the visiting team. Meanwhile, at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time, NBC aired a game between the Oakland Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs nationally. As the 1975 World Series progressed, NBC would advertise its upcoming weekend schedule during the breaks:

If we have a Game 7, we'll have The Baseball World of Joe Garagiola at 12:30 and Game 7 from Fenway. Otherwise, we'll have GrandStand at 12:30, and Buffalo/Miami for most of you at 1:00. Either way, you win at NBC.

As it turned out, no baseball was played that Sunday. Three days of rain in Boston forced Game 6 to be postponed until the following Tuesday, October 21, followed by Game 7 the next night.

1975 was also the final season for Al DeRogatis at NBC. He would return briefly in 1988 as a fill-in color commentator during the Summer Olympics. The following year, Curt Gowdy split double-duty with John Brodie and Don Meredith in Weeks 12 and 14. In Week 12, Gowdy and Brodie worked the Thanksgiving Day game (Buffalo-Detroit), while Gowdy and Meredith worked the Pittsburgh-Cincinnati game. In Week 14, Gowdy and Brodie called the Pittsburgh-Houston game on Saturday, then the following day Gowdy and Meredith called the Cincinnati-New York Jets game. Don Meredith would return to ABC's Monday Night Football at the end of the season. After Meredith left NBC, John Brodie would be the top color commentator alongside Curt Gowdy in 1977 and 1978. Meanwhile, after this season, Tim Ryan, who was on the fifth-tier announcing team with Lionel Aldridge, left NBC to join CBS Sports.

On January 9, 1977, 81.9 million people (the largest audience ever for a sporting event at that point) watched NBC's telecast of Super Bowl XI between the Oakland Raiders and Minnesota Vikings. Only three other television events prior to that time, all of which aired on all three commercial networks of the era (the funeral of President John F. Kennedy, the 1969 moonwalk of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and the 1974 resignation speech of President Richard M. Nixon), attracted more viewers than Super Bowl IX. The game was also the last broadcast that color commentator Don Meredith, who called the game with Gowdy, did for NBC, as he returned to ABC to rejoin the Monday Night Football crew for the 1977 season, where he had been a commentator from 1970 to 1973. Bryant Gumbel and Lee Leonard with analyst John Brodie anchored NBC's pregame, halftime and postgame coverage.

On October 12, 1977, Commissioner Pete Rozelle negotiated contracts with the three television networks to televise all NFL regular season and postseason games, as well as select preseason games, for four years beginning with the 1978 season. ABC was awarded yearly rights to 16 Monday night games, four prime time games, the AFC-NFC Pro Bowl, and the Hall of Fame Games. CBS received the rights to all National Football Conference (NFC) regular season and postseason games (except those in the ABC package) and to Super Bowls XIV and XVI. NBC received the rights to all AFC regular-season and postseason games (again, except those in the ABC package) and to Super Bowls XIII and XV. Industry sources considered it the largest single television package ever negotiated.

After the 1977 season, Jack Buck, who was the initial host for NBC's first official studio pregame show in 1975, and on the fourth-tier announcing crew with Jimmy Johnson in 1977, would return to CBS Sports, primarily calling games for CBS Radio. Dick Stockton, who was on the sixth-tier team with Len Dawson, would also return to CBS Sports.

1980s

NBC made history in the 1980s with an announcerless telecast, which was a one-shot experiment credited to Don Ohlmeyer, between the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins in Miami on December 20, 1980,^[9] as well as a single-announcer telecast, coverage of the Canadian Football League^[10][11] during the 1982 players' strike (the first week of broadcasts featured the NFL on NBC broadcast teams, before a series of blowout games on the network and the resulting low ratings resulted in NBC cutting back and eventually canceling its CFL coverage), and even the first female play-by-play football announcer, Gayle Sierens (which in its own way set the mold for female sportscasters of today).

Bob Trumpy filled in for Merlin Olsen alongside Dick Enberg during the Oakland Raiders-Philadelphia Eagles regular season game in Week 12 of the 1980 season.

Television ratings in 1980 were the second-best in NFL history, trailing only the combined ratings of the 1976 season. All three networks posted gains, and NBC's 15.0 rating was its best ever. NFL broadcasts on CBS and ABC had their best ratings since 1977, with 15.3 and 20.8 ratings, respectively. In 1981, ABC and CBS set all-time rating highs. ABC finished with a 21.7 rating and CBS with a 17.5 rating. NBC however, was down slightly to 13.9; this was, at the time, the nadir of the Fred Silverman era, when ratings for the network were down across the board.

On November 15, 1981, the San Francisco 49ers game against the Cleveland Browns sold out in time for the TV blackout to be lifted. But KRON (NBC in the Bay Area) had to air the Oakland Raiders' road game against the Miami Dolphins. They ultimately showed the Browns-49ers game on tape delay that night.

On January 2, 1982, NBC was on hand for a divisional playoff game between the San Diego Chargers and Miami Dolphins that would go down as the "Epic in Miami". The game, won by the Chargers in overtime, 41–38, is one of the most famous in National Football League lore because of the conditions on the field, the performances of players on both teams, and the numerous records that were set.^[12] Don Criqui and John Brodie called the action and Bryant Gumbel served as the anchor, one of his final assignments for NBC Sports as he began co-hosting Today two days after the game. The following week, NBC covered the AFC Championship Game between the Chargers and Cincinnati Bengals. While the "Epic in Miami" was played in the heat and humidity of Miami, the Chargers found themselves dealing with nearly the exact opposite conditions in the "Freezer Bowl" in Cincinnati.

In 1982, the NFL signed a five-year contract with the three television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) to televise all NFL regular season and postseason games starting with the 1982 season. During the 1982 season, Dick Enberg teamed with John Brodie to call the Week 1 game between the Los Angeles Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers, and then with Len Dawson for the Week 2 game between the Raiders and Atlanta Falcons.

NBC's national Nielsen rating of 48.6 for Super Bowl XVII was the second-highest for a Super Bowl broadcast, trailing only the 49.1 garnered by Super Bowl XVI on CBS the year before. Following the game, NBC aired the premiere episode of The A-Team, beginning the tradition of the game's host network airing programming after the game.

On August 3, 1983, NBC broadcast the first televised NFL game from London with the St. Louis Cardinals and Minnesota Vikings playing at Wembley Stadium. NBC would regularly televise pre-season exhibition games outside of the United States from 1986-1994. 1983 was also Bob Costas' last season in the booth (by this time, he was on the fourth-tier team with Bob Trumpy) before being promoted as the new host (replacing Len Berman) of NFL '84.

In the 1984 season, the October 18 game between the Pittsburgh Steelers at San Francisco 49ers and the Buffalo Bills at Seattle Seahawks were both on at the same time as Game 5 of the World Series (also on NBC) between the San Diego Padres and the Detroit Tigers. The Steelers won that day. It was the only loss the 49ers suffered in the 1984 season. Meanwhile, almost of the New York Jets games that year were called by Marv Albert and John Brodie also worked with Phil Stone (for the Steelers-Oilers game in Week 14), and Marty Glickman (for the Bills-Jets in Week 15) in 1984, and Jay Randolph (for the Steelers-Raiders game in Week 16).

For the 1985 season, NBC used Graham De Wilde's composition "Send Them Victorious" for their official theme music for the NFL. On January 26, 1986, the Chicago Bears defeated the New England Patriots 46–10 in Super Bowl XX at the Louisiana Superdome. The NBC telecast replaced the final episode of M*A*S*H as the most-viewed television program in history, with an audience of 127 million viewers, according to ACNielsen figures. In addition to drawing a 48.3 rating and a 70% share in the United States, Super Bowl XX was televised to 59 foreign countries and beamed via satellite to the QE2. An estimated 300 million Chinese viewers watched a tape delayed broadcast of the game in March. NBC Radio figures indicated an audience of 10 million for the game.

Bob Griese would work the 1985 AFC Championship Game as a field reporter, and would serve as a third commentator alongside Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen for Super Bowl XX. Following the 1986 season, Griese would move to ABC as a college football analyst. In Week 15 of that season, Charlie Jones, Jimmy Cefalo, and Griese (who normally worked with Marv Albert in 1986) called the Miami-Los Angeles Rams game.

As previously mentioned, during the 1987 season, through a short stint with NBC Sports, Gayle Sierens became the first woman to do play-by-play for an NFL regular season football game when she called the December 27 game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Kansas City Chiefs. Sierens' broadcast partner on that day was Dave Rowe. She was originally to be a regular play-by-play announcer for the season, but a contract dispute with WFLA in Tampa, Florida prevented her from continuing in that role beyond her lone game.^[13] One year later, Sierens would join Len Berman and Paul Maguire on NBC's NFL Live! program while regular panelists Bob Costas, Ahmad Rashad and Gayle Gardner were in Seoul for the Summer Olympics.

NBC's 1989 telecast of Super Bowl XXIII between the San Francisco 49ers and Cincinnati Bengals was watched by an estimated 110,780,000 viewers, according to ACNielsen, making it the sixth most-watched program in television history. The game was Merlin Olsen's final Super Bowl broadcast, as he was demoted^[14] the following season to make room for Bill Walsh. The game featured a special segment by Frank Deford profiling recently deceased Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney. This was also the first NFL game that NBC covered with their new "Quantel Cypher" graphics system, which was introduced during their coverage of the 1988 Seoul Olympics (the network had used Chyron for their graphics prior to Super Bowl XXIII). With the win, the 49ers became the first team to win Super Bowls televised on three different networks (the other two being Super Bowl XVI on CBS and Super Bowl XIX on ABC). Since then, the Washington Redskins (in 1992), the Green Bay Packers (in 1997), the Pittsburgh Steelers (in 2006) the New York Giants (in 2008) the New England Patriots (in 2015) and the Denver Broncos (in 2016) have accomplished this same feat. This was the last outdoor Super Bowl to start earlier than 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time, as it started just after 5:00 p.m.

Starting in 1989, NBC commissioned musician (and then-Entertainment Tonight co-host) John Tesh, who would later compose "Roundball Rock" for the forthcoming NBA on NBC broadcasts to compose a new theme, called "Gridiron Dreams" which was used on the network's NFL telecasts until 1991. The versions used on the pre-game show are different from the version supplied on Tesh's albums. For the 1992 season, John Colby composed a theme only used that year through the 1992 AFC Championship Game in which the Buffalo Bills beat the Miami Dolphins 29–10.

Week 7's telecast of the Patriots-49ers game (called by Dick Enberg and Bill Walsh) was moved from San Francisco's Candlestick Park to Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, California following the Loma Prieta earthquake in the Bay Area on October 17. Following the 1989 season, after being demoted to the #2 team alongside Charlie Jones, Merlin Olsen would move over to CBS. Olsen's final telecast for NBC was the divisional playoff game between the Bills and Browns. Meanwhile, Lyle Alzado, who was on the eighth-tier team alongside Fred Roggin, would leave NBC after the 1989 season in order to attempt a comeback as a player. Alzado however did work Week 4's Chargers-Cardinals game alongside Jay Randolph.

1990s

On March 12, 1990, at the NFL's annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, the league new ratified four-year television agreements for the 1990 to 1993 seasons involving ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN and TNT. The contracts totaled US$3.6 billion, the largest package in television history. This contract saw each network having rights to one Super Bowl telecast as part of the package. The fourth Super Bowl (XXVIII) was up for a separate sealed bid. NBC won the bid, and since they were last in the rotation for Super Bowl coverage in the regular contract, ended up with two straight Super Bowls (although they were originally scheduled to broadcast Super Bowl XXVI; CBS instead televised the game as part of a swap with the network). CBS is the only other network to televise two Super Bowls (Super Bowl I and II) in a row. NBC, which had held XXVII (according to the original rotation, NBC would have had XXVI and CBS XXVII, but the NFL allowed the networks to switch the two games in order to allow CBS a significant lead-in to its coverage of the 1992 Winter Olympics), was the only network to bid on XXVIII. Previously, the league alternated the Super Bowl broadcast among its broadcast network partners, except for Super Bowl I; CBS broadcast Super Bowl II, then the league rotated the broadcast between CBS and NBC until 1985 when ABC entered the rotation when that network broadcast Super Bowl XIX.^[18]

The live Sunday matches of the 1991 Ryder Cup held in late September on NBC were scheduled to end by mid-afternoon in order to allow NBC to cover regional NFL games at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

Dick Enberg and Bill Walsh did not call any games during Weeks 9-12 of the 1991 NFL season due to being assigned to covering Notre Dame home games on NBC (this being the network's first season as the home of Fighting Irish home games). Walsh would leave NBC after this season to return to coaching at Stanford. Walsh's spot as NBC's number #1 color commentator would be subsequently filled by Bob Trumpy. Meanwhile, Bill Parcells was originally hired by NBC after leaving the New York Giants as a panelist for NFL Live!. However, he would be assigned early in the 1991 season as a substitute for Paul Maguire while Maguire recovered from a heart attack. Maguire would make his return in Week 6, calling the Jets-Browns game alongside Marv Albert. Bill Parcells left NBC the 1992 season to take the New England Patriots head coaching job. At this point, Parcells as assigned to work with Marv Albert full-time while Paul Maguire worked with Don Criqui.

For Week 1 of the 1991 season, Marv Albert substituted as host of NFL Live!. 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. For the 1993 season, Jim Lampley would replace Bob Costas as host of NFL Live!. During the 1993 season, there was an open option for the #6 and #7 broadcast teams which included Bob Costas, Dan Hicks, Drew Goodman, and Jim Donovan at play-by-play, and Joe Gibbs, Dan Hampton, and Mike Ditka at analyst. Costas called the Steelers-Broncos game in Week 12 alongside Gibbs while Gibbs' normal partner, Dan Hicks was paired with Dan Hampton for the Colts-Bills game. Hicks and Hampton would also call the following week's game between the Raiders and Bengals. O. J. Simpson would be a sideline reporter for several announcing crews during the 1993 season, including Super Bowl XXVIII alongside Todd Christensen. Simpson would be gone following the season due to the fall-out from his murder case.

While with NFL on NBC, Drew Goodman was slated to join Todd Christensen as the #4 announcing team in 1994, then in the next two years, he was slated to join the #7 team, to be paired in 1995 with Tunch Ilkin then with Bob Golic in 1996. However, Jim Lampley moved from the studio host to play-by-play in 1994, with Greg Gumbel taking over as the studio host, so Goodman was not placed into the lineup after all.

2000s

After NBC lost its NFL rights to CBS at the end of the 1997 season, it in the process, marked the beginning of a slow decline for its sports division, culminating in the unproductive 2004–05 prime time season (despite heavy lineup promotion during the 2004 Summer Olympics), when NBC carried no major sporting championships during prime time (NBC had already lost Major League Baseball (MLB) broadcasting rights in 2000 and National Basketball Association (NBA) rights in 2002; the network had acquired National Hockey League (NHL) rights in 2004, but that league was involved in a lockout that cancelled the season). The other major sport on NBC was the NASCAR Winston/Nextel Cup Series.

NBC's attempts to replace the NFL with other professional football, including the XFL in 2001 and the Arena Football League (AFL) coverage from 2003 to 2006, proved to be very unsuccessful. Like CBS before it, NBC would later decide that not having NFL rights did too much damage to its overall ratings to justify foregoing the high rights fees required.

In 2005, NBC re-entered the NFL picture during negotiations for television contracts. The network was able to take advantage of a league desire to be able to switch the schedule so non-competitive games would not air in the league's marquee timeslot. Since this would require a move to Sunday night in order for this to happen, and since ABC decided to relinquish their rights to Monday Night Football, NBC was able to bid on the Sunday Night Football package and won the rights after ESPN (corporate sibling to ABC and which had previously held those rights) elected to take over the Monday Night Football rights from ABC.^[29] NBC resumed airing NFL football on August 6, 2006, with coverage of the annual AFC-NFC Hall of Fame Game.

NBC's rights package is nearly identical to the previous ABC package; in addition to the Hall of Fame Game, the contract gave NBC the rights to one additional preseason game, the National Football League Kickoff game, and two Saturday playoff games. NBC also received the rights to two Super Bowls in its bidding, Super Bowl XLIII and Super Bowl XLVI as well as the Pro Bowls in each of those two years. ABC did not have the right to be flexible with their Monday Night Football schedule and picked matchups based on a team's record in the previous season (as NBC does), which often led to teams with losing records playing each other on Monday night later in the season. The moves were intended to break NBC out of its ratings slump; however, this did not happen right away, and although NBC Sunday Night Football is the network's top-rated program and places in the top 30 among all broadcast network programs, it had no effect on the rest of the network's schedule for several years.

Al Michaels, the longtime voice of Monday Night Football and other events for ABC, moved to NBC to become the play-by-play announcer for Sunday Night Football. Michaels was originally slated to continue calling Monday Night Football for ESPN, but a trade was worked out between NBC and The Walt Disney Company, the parent company of ABC and ESPN. In the trade, Michaels was able to join NBC in exchange for Disney acquiring from NBC's corporate sibling Universal Pictures, among other things, the rights to the cartoon character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, which was created at Universal by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks before the founding of Disney's studio (and then given to Walter Lantz, whose most famous creation would be Woody Woodpecker).

Except in 2007 (where the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game was televised by NFL Network as part of the Thursday Night Football package; NBC had intended to televise the China Bowl game in Beijing, which was postponed and ultimately cancelled), and in all Summer Olympics years (due to NBC's telecasts of the Games; the games in these years have typically been assigned to either NFL Network, or ESPN under the current iteration of MNF), the Hall of Fame Game has aired on NBC since 2006.

John Madden (who had last worked with Al Michaels on Monday Night Football for ABC) was one of the first people hired by NBC, chosen to continue as a color analyst. Cris Collinsworth substituted for Madden when he was unavailable. For example, during Week 7 of the 2008 season (that week's game was involved the Seattle Seahawks playing against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers), 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 Bay in three weeks.

2010s

On December 14, 2011, the NFL, along with Fox, NBC and CBS, announced the league's rights deal with all three networks was extended to the end of the 2022 season. The three network rights deal includes the continued rotation of the Super Bowl yearly among the three, meaning NBC will air Super Bowls XLIX (2015), LII (2018), and LVI (2022).^[33] The new rights deal also includes NBC receiving the primetime game of the Thanksgiving tripleheader previously carried by NFL Network, along with a divisional playoff game and one wild card game rather than the full Wild Card Saturday package.

NBC's broadcast of Super Bowl XLVI at the end of the 2011 season became the most-watched program in the history of United States television, with 111.3 million US viewers, according to Nielsen.^[34] The game was the first Super Bowl telecast to be streamed live online legally in the U.S., both to computers (via NFL.com and NBCSports.com) and mobile devices (via Verizon Wireless's NFL Mobile app).^[35][36] The game marked Al Michaels' eighth time conducting play-by-play for a Super Bowl (Michaels had previously done play-by-play for Super Bowls XXII, XXV, XXIX, XXXIV, XXXVII and XL for ABC, and Super Bowl XLIII for NBC).

NBC's television broadcast of the Patriots-Jets game on November 22, 2012, immediately following the now notorious "Butt Fumble" play, color commentator Cris Collinsworth said that "Vince Wilfork just threw Brandon Moore into Mark Sanchez,"^[37] a view simultaneously echoed on the Patriots radio call by color analyst Scott Zolak. Moore disagreed with Collinsworth: "when somebody slides into the back of you, you're going to fall. That happens a lot in general. You don't know what's going on (behind you)."^[38] Responding to Moore, Collinsworth qualified his description in a phone interview with ESPN, saying that Wilfork could see the play develop, so "instead of trying to go around Moore, he pushed him back into the play and made the whole thing happen."^[38] A New York Daily News columnist sided with Moore, stating that "A second look at the play shows Moore holding his own against Wilfork and moving, if anything, mostly forward."^[37]

NBC, which carried Thanksgiving afternoon games through 1997, did not issue an MVP award during that time. NBC began broadcasting the Thanksgiving prime time game in 2012 (as part of its Sunday Night Football package), at which point the MVP award was added. The award is currently called the Sunday Night Football on Thanksgiving Night Player of the Game, and is typically awarded to multiple players on the winning team.^[39] From 2012 to 2015, the NBC award was referred to as the "Madden Thanksgiving Player-of-the-Game", honoring John Madden (who announced NBC games from 2006 to 2008).^[40][41]

Sunday Night Football ranked the most-watched program in the United States during the 2011–12 season. This feat was repeated during the 2013–14 season; in that case, NBC finished the season as the #1 network among adults aged 18–49 for the first time since 2004 and #2 in total viewership (behind longtime leader CBS).^[42]

NBC's broadcast of Super Bowl XLIX at the end of 2014 season became the most-watched program in the history of United States Television, with 114.4 million US viewers, according to Nielsen (since surpassed by Fox's broadcast of Super Bowl LVII in 2023).^[43] The game was the fourth overall telecast to be streamed live online legally in the U.S. both to computers (via NFL.com and NBCSports.com) for the second time and mobile devices (via Verizon Wireless's NFL Mobile app). The game marked Al Michaels ninth time conducting play-by-play for a Super Bowl (Michaels had previously done play-by-play for Super Bowls XXII, XXV, XXIX, XXXIV, XXXVII and XL for ABC and XLIII and XLVI for NBC).

NBC's coverage of Super Bowl LII between the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots at the end of the 2017 season highlighted a play that would become known as the "Philly Special". On the play, Philadelphia quarterback Nick Foles moved up to behind his offensive line and the ball was directly snapped to running back Corey Clement. Clement went on to pitch the ball to Trey Burton, who passed the ball to a wide open Foles to score a touchdown; Foles thereby became the first player in Super Bowl history to both throw and catch a touchdown.^[44] Eagles head coach Doug Pederson's decision to attempt to score a touchdown rather than attempt a field goal on the play helped put the Eagles in a better position to defeat the New England Patriots, which they subsequently did, 41–33. The victory was the Eagles' first championship in 57 years.^[45] Many analysts have since called the play one of the gutsiest play-calls in Super Bowl history.^[46] Before the play was called, Cris Collinsworth expressed his shock on-air that the Eagles would go for it, as he said, "This is an unbelievable call ... This is like going for an onside kick. This could decide the game."^[47]

In the 2018 NFC Wild Card game between the Eagles and Chicago Bears, Chicago kicker Cody Parkey missed a 43-yard field goal attempt. The ball would hit the left upright, then bounce off the crossbar and fell to the end zone, no-good. Ultimately, the sixth-seeded Eagles won the game over the third-seeded Bears, 16–15 to advance to the divisional playoff round.^[48][49] The term "Double Doink" took hold due to Cris Collinsworth, who said on the NBC broadcast while he watched the replay, "The Bears' season's gonna end on a double doink." While Collinsworth is credited with coining the phrase "Double Doink."^[50] when asked about it the following day, he said, "I don’t think I invented the word; I think John Madden said doink first. But it was this double dinky thing — the ball bounced off one and then the other."^[51]

On December 25, 2019, NFL Films allowed two Western New York CBS affiliates owned by Nexstar Media Group, Buffalo's WIVB-TV and Rochester's WROC-TV, to rerun the 1990 AFC Championship Game as a Christmas special, in which the Buffalo Bills defeated the then-Los Angeles Raiders, 51–3. The telecast aired in its original standard definition format, though with NBC News updates regarding the Persian Gulf War and most references to NBC Sports outside natural game action edited out.^[52][53]

2020s

Super Bowl LV was televised by CBS. Although NBC was to air this game under the current rotation, they traded with CBS for Super Bowl LVI, which falls during the 2022 Winter Olympics and is the first to be scheduled during an ongoing Olympic Games (this also upholds the untold gentleman's agreement between the NFL's broadcasters to not counterprogram the Super Bowl,^[56] as NBC also holds the U.S. broadcast rights to the Olympics). CBS, to an extent, also benefited from holding rights to the Super Bowl in the same year that it held rights to the NCAA Final Four (which is cycled with WarnerMedia Entertainment channels on a two-year cycle, and CBS had also broadcast in the same year as its previous Super Bowl).^[57][58]

With the NFL expanding its Wild Card round to six games in the 2020 season, broadcast rights to the new games were sold to CBS and NBC, at approximately $70 million each. Both networks announced plans to simulcast their games on other outlets owned by their parent companies, with NBC planning to simulcast its game on its recently launched streaming service Peacock, and on its Spanish-language broadcast network Telemundo.

The 2020 schedule was released on May 7. The Kickoff game was on September 10, which featured the Super Bowl LIV Champion Kansas City Chiefs hosting the Houston Texans. The Thanksgiving Night game was supposed to feature the Baltimore Ravens against the Pittsburgh Steelers; the ninth time that the Thanksgiving game would have been part of the SNF package shown on NBC. A COVID-19 outbreak on the Baltimore Ravens forced the postponement of the game to the following Sunday afternoon, which was then postponed to the following Tuesday night, and then finally to Wednesday afternoon.^[59][60] It was shown on NBC as scheduled, but KWQC-TV - the NBC affiliate for the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois - opted not to show the game. Before this occasion, the last Wednesday night game played in the NFL was also a special edition of primetime on NBC - the 2012 Kickoff game between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants that was scheduled as such to avoid a conflict with Barack Obama's renomination speech at that year's Democratic National Convention.

Mike Tirico substituted for Al Michaels on a select number of games in 2020, that started with the September 27 game between the Green Bay Packers and the New Orleans Saints. Tirico was initially slated to call the Thanksgiving game in 2020, but was assigned instead to call the Week 12 SNF game between the Packers and the Chicago Bears with Tony Dungy and Kathryn Tappen. Tirico was eventually given the assignment to call the rescheduled Ravens–Steelers game with Collinsworth after it was postponed from Sunday afternoon to Wednesday night. Tirico was also slated to call one of NBC's two wild card playoff games in January.

The aforementioned Packers–Saints game took place while the 2020 Stanley Cup Finals (rescheduled from its normal late May–early June schedule) were ongoing; As NBC was also the rightsholder to National Hockey League (NHL) games in the United States, the league opted to play Games 4 and 5 (September 25–26) of the finals on consecutive nights to avoid conflict with SNF. In addition, the 2020 NBA Finals were also moved from June to October due to the pandemic. SNF games were played on the same night as NBA Finals in consecutive weeks, on October 4 (Philadelphia Eagles vs. San Francisco 49ers) the same day as Game 3, and on October 11 (Minnesota Vikings vs. Seattle Seahawks) on the same day as Game 6 (the eventual last game of the series).

On March 18, 2021, the NFL, along with Fox, NBC, CBS and ESPN/ABC announced the league's rights deal with all four networks was extended through the 2033 season. The four network rights deal includes the rotation of the Super Bowl yearly among the four, meaning NBC will air three Super Bowls: LX (2026), LXIV (2030) and LXVIII (2034), all in Winter Olympic years.^[61]

NBC's coverage of Super Bowl LVI between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams at the end of the 2021 NFL season was the 20th Super Bowl to air on the network. The game was overall, the eleventh Super Bowl telecast to be legally streamed live online in the United States both to computers (via NFL.com, Peacock, and NBCSports.com, in addition to NBC and Telemundo's apps for local streaming) for the fourth time and mobile devices via Verizon Wireless's NFL Mobile app. The game also marked Al Michaels' eleventh time conducting play-by-play for a Super Bowl (Michaels had previously done play-by-play for Super Bowls XXII, XXV, XXIX, XXXIV, XXXVII, XL for ABC and four more including XLIII, XLVI, XLIX and LII for NBC). It was also the first Super Bowl carried by Telemundo over-the-air with a primary Spanish language broadcast.

Beginning in the 2023 NFL season NBC will be producing a single regular season game (and in 2023 a single wild card game) per year exclusively airing on Peacock, however those games will still air in the participating markets on their local NBC stations.^[62]

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