transcript

TRANSCRIPT – LIVE FROM THE MASTERS CONFERENCE CALL

March 31, 2021 By admin

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Brandel Chamblee

Justin Leonard

Rich Lerner

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for joining today’s call. We’re going to be joined by NBC Sports’ lead golf studio team featuring Rich Lerner and analysts Brandel Chamblee and Justin Leonard.

RICH LERNER: Thanks for joining us. Now that I live in New England, in Connecticut, the GOLF Channel has moved, I’m more acutely aware of the waiting game that golfers play. Wait for the snow to melt. We had plenty of it. You wait for that first warm day. And obviously if you love the sport, you wait for The Masters. It’s always nice when the waiting is over.

Last time we were together at Augusta National, we were talking, if I remember correctly guys, we were talking about Leo Diegel and Denny Shute and Willie Fernie, who are the only men to have won majors later in the year than Dustin Johnson last November. Brandel can give you a full debrief on Willie Fernie.

The storylines that I have my eye on, I think a lot of people would like to see, if I had to sort of rank them pre-tournament, I think the best story would be Jordan Spieth winning again at last, his first time since Birkdale in 2017.

Bryson at Augusta. Rory completing the slam in his seventh try. Dustin becoming the fourth to repeat. I’ll throw a curveball here — Phil at 50. And though he hasn’t been great of late, you never discount someone like Phil at Augusta. And I think the other story, I think if it happens, if he plays, Brooks Koepka on one good leg.

A lot of really good storylines going in. Brandel, how about you?

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: Look, there’s a lot to look forward to this week. Starting off for me, I’m going to be watching and talking about the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. The inaugural gave us an epic back and forth between Jennifer Kupcho and Maria Fassi, not only of athleticism but of goodwill towards one another.

I think that was the sport represented at its highest. Jennifer Kupcho did her best to duplicate the shot heard around the world in 1935 when Gene Sarazen, not at the 13th but the 15th holed it out. But who could forget Kupcho’s shot in the 13th for a final-round 67. Of course, she’s gone on to have a good start to her LPGA career.

Also looking forward to the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals.

And as the week goes on, just watching Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Lee Elder get The Masters started. It’s been two years since we’ve had one in April. And while it was nice last year for us to get to see The Masters played, and it was beautiful in fall colors, I think most people are looking forward to the golf course playing more with players who are accustomed to — a little firmer, a little faster.

I’m also looking forward to Bryson DeChambeau take two. I think the first go-around was not what he was looking for, not what anybody was expecting.

And then, of course, the shortest time elapsed between a player winning in his defense, Dustin Johnson, not much has happened since then in terms of his game falling off. It’s still almost as sharp as it was coming into the event. So, looking forward to watching Dustin Johnson try to successfully defend and just be the fourth player to do so.

Justin, there’s always a lot to talk about, those are just headlines for me. But we can go on and on and I’m sure you could as well.

JUSTIN LEONARD: Certainly could. You guys hit on so many great storylines that we’ll be really detailing starting Monday night, first part of the week, and then kind of see how the golf plays out.

It seems like I was just driving from Augusta to Atlanta to catch a flight a couple of weeks ago. Even though it was four months ago, it seems a little strange for such a quick turnaround.

I know that, I believe the last two editions of the Masters Tournament has set scoring records. I’ve also heard through a couple of different folks that the golf course right now, or at least in the last week or two has been playing very, very firm.

And I’m guessing that, and I look forward to finding out for sure, that we’re going to find a little tougher Augusta National. I think they want to put a little bit of teeth back into it. Certainly, you know, we’re under some constraints weather-wise and the overseed everything in November. I think they’ll have a little more control over the golf course starting this weekend.

And it will be really interesting to see if they keep the golf course firm. I doubt it will be as firm this weekend. But going into this tournament, starting Monday through Wednesday, how the golf course firms up, the weather looks to be pretty good.

And, like you say, Dustin Johnson, can he win two in a row? Bryson after his first go-around, what adjustments did he make? And then, of course, Jordan Spieth. And also one name you didn’t mention was Rory McIlroy, trying to complete the career grand slam.

I don’t think he has a whole lot of confidence in his game right now. But maybe he can gather some this week and find something magical next weekend.

Q. I’m wondering if Augusta National does play as difficult as some people are pontificating, who do you think that benefits next weekend?

JUSTIN LEONARD: Well, I think Brandel has convinced me that the angle of descent is very important at Augusta National, even more so when it’s firm and fast. When I played in it in the years I did, I always looked forward to playing fast because it meant that I would be hitting 4-irons into all the par-4s.

But knowing what I know now, and thanks to Brandel just continuing to hammer this home with me, it’s the guys who can bring it in from a steep angle.

And I think if the golf course turns out to play fast, I still love Dustin Johnson and his ability to play that golf course. I think Rory McIlroy, I still think that when he gets to Augusta, having such a shorter timeframe from November to April rather than having to think about it for an entire year, probably suits him.

Then you have to go to a guy like Bryson, with as high as he can hit the ball with less clubs than anybody will hit into the greens and especially the par-5s, I think a firmer golf course plays even more into the longer hitters’ hands. And certainly a guy like Bryson would be somebody you’d have to consider. If not the favorite, then certainly one of the top four or five.

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: I would agree, it’s somewhat counterintuitive. The softer the golf course plays, the more it opens it up for everybody, even those with lower ball flights and less spin. And the firmer it plays, the more it’s sort of imperative to control your landings with angles.

So I would look at Justin Thomas for sure under any circumstances, but certainly Justin Thomas and Bryson DeChambeau. And beyond that I’d go to those players — if it’s playing firm, obviously what a player does tee to green is important, but around the green is hugely important. So I look to the most well-rounded players, and that’s Patrick Cantlay. He’s certainly in that group.

I hope Rory McIlroy finds something with Pete Cowen and his team. I hope he’s able to show up with some sort of semblance of form, that he’ll have an aha moment sometime between the last time he played at the Match Play and we see him at Augusta.

I hope he has one of those aha moments. Justin can certainly can speak to this, you just never know. You can go out to the range one day completely lacking in confidence and think you stink, and walk home that night and feel like you’re Jack Nicklaus and think I found it. Nobody else may know it. But he could really show up and be a completely different person because we’re talking about — two weeks I think one of the most exciting things going into this Masters really for me is to see what Pete Cowen and Rory McIlroy are capable of doing when they’re home for a week and they have time to work on — if you’re arguably looking at the most talented golfer in the world and you’re already talking about arguably the most talented teacher — I’m curious what those two could do.

I don’t think it’s going to take the two-year incubation period that Nick Faldo took or Tiger Woods took, or at least I don’t think it should have to. I think teaching has improved since those two-year incubation points, as the ability to measure with more accuracy golf swings, because of the devices they use teaching has improved.

So, I’m really curious what Rory McIlroy shows up with at Augusta National.

RICH LERNER: I would throw in one other name among others, but Jon Rahm. To me it’s not a question of if, but when. And I think it will be soon and I also believe it would be a Greg Norman/Ernie Els surprise if he never won a Masters. So well suited does he appear to be for Augusta National. I think he has a ton of game. Jon Rahm, another guy, I think that will play well.

Q. You already mentioned a little bit about Bryson. What do you feel like he did wrong last time when he tried to take apart — he tried to just overpower Augusta National. Is that something that can be done?

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: Look, I believe him when he says he wasn’t feeling well that week. I think some weeks you show up and you don’t have it physically. And I think it was an off week for him. I also think he was hugely unlucky at the third when his ball — I’ve never seen anybody lose a golf ball there. We’ll be watching The Masters for the next 20, 30, 40 years, you’ll never see another golf ball lost where Bryson hit it.

It was a hugely unlucky break. He got off to a bad start. I think one of the more, if not the most, ironic moment of 2020 was him making double bogey at the 13th hole in the first round after all the buildup to what he might do there.

So a lot of things have to go your way for a player of any skill to have a great week. And one of them is to feel well. I take him at his word, if you’re paying attention, he’s altered his diet. He’s come a long way down from the four, five, or 6,000 calories a day; he’s having 1,500 calories a day. And I’ve thought this all along, that a larger part of the equation of him hitting it far was not his diet and his bulk, but the changes he made in his golf swing.

He says as much when he talks about the more sinewy build of Kyle Berkshire. He’s going to come into Augusta more sinewy than the last time we saw him, less bulked up and hopefully feeling better. And Bryson DeChambeau take two at the 2021 Masters, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave us all the excitement that we were expecting in 2020.

JUSTIN LEONARD: I think for Bryson is not trying to do too much as far as there may be a hole where it’s fine to hit a 5-wood or a 4-hybrid, if he had his cracked one replaced, which I’m sure he has from THE PLAYERS.

But not try and completely overpower every single hole on every single shot. There’s times when it’s a good idea just to play to the corner. I think of the hole like 5 where if it’s a stretch for him to get over that last fairway bunker. If he hits a 3-wood out where most of the other players are playing from, he’s still coming in with a shorter iron than they are. He’s still coming in with a steeper angle.

So I think it’s a void — the need to overpower every single tee shot there. I think it’s take advantage of the ones he’s comfortable in doing and maybe driver at 13 is not the right play. Maybe it is.

Obviously he can hit it very high. He can do it from right-to-left. But I just would like to see him avoid some pressing and trying to do too much off the tee, because his game is solid enough to get around that — he doesn’t need to drive it perfectly on every hole in order to put himself in position.

He can play to certain spots where the rest of the field is playing from and he still has an advantage. And yet on the holes where he’s very comfortable off the tee, those are the ones where he needs to put the pedal down.

RICH LERNER: I would just add that I think Bryson, what makes him so intriguing is that he’s pushing the sport to its most modern edge. But I think with that, he’s having to figure out how to manage every aspect of it, when you come into a big championship. And so it’s not just, to Brandel’s point, managing his diet but it’s managing the media and managing expectations and managing the hype.

And so as Bryson figures that end of it out, and I think he’s in the early stages, I think we may see something really extraordinary, because I think we’re just — this moonshot has just been sort of liftoff. The other side of that is how long can Bryson, at full throttle, he always appears to be at full throttle, how many events have we been to where the round was over — it was at Winged Foot and deep into a Saturday night, he’s still hitting driver full force.

So the other side of it is how long can he last without sort of the engine blowing. And I think Bryson and his team are smart. And I think they’re looking holistically at his program and how to best manage it. So to that end I think there will be a much better performance from Bryson this time around.

Q. Justin, but please, Brandel, can jump in as well. You’ve heard Phil say many times that no matter how poorly or indifferent he had been playing before The Masters, that once he got there and drove down Magnolia Lane, that everything seemed to change. Do you think a lot of players feel that way? Or maybe just players who have won there before, or just Phil?

JUSTIN LEONARD: Well, I think there’s a few players. That list is pretty short. It certainly works for Phil Mickelson. I think Jordan Spieth is another player. He’s probably not — there probably isn’t another golf course in the world where he’s more comfortable, he’s more excited about playing than Augusta National. I think he and Phil, of the modern players, they’re really the only two players I can think of, maybe Tiger Woods as well — and the reason I just didn’t say it immediately is because he’s not playing.

But for those players, I don’t think it matters what sort of form that they’re in when they get to Augusta National, because they’re so confident in what they do on that golf course, in particular.

And that their recent form doesn’t really matter. Now the fact that Jordan Spieth is coming in regaining his form rather rapidly over the last two months says to me that’s a little bit dangerous for the rest of the field because he’s got to be one of the favorites. Phil, you wouldn’t have him as a favorite, but it’s certainly fair to watch because of his record there. And he’s talked about it. It’s his favorite week of the year.

And while I know he’s playing this week in San Antonio, I don’t think it matters a whole lot how he plays, because the shot that he’s hitting this week in the tournament, it’s all with next week in mind.

So those two players, I think, you have to keep an eye out for them no matter how they’re coming into the week.

Q. Rich, you’re such a big sports fan even beyond golf. And so often in sports we always talk about the teams that kind of sneak into the playoffs under the radar and then do something once the playoffs begin. So you were out there in Austin last week, obviously, calling golf for five days. Is there somebody off the radar that you think we should keep in mind that maybe you talked to on the range or saw something that you think could have a big week next week?

RICH LERNER: Well, personally, I can’t quite expunge from my mind the image of Tyrrell Hatton, who seems to have perfected the art of club flip. And as questionable acts of decorum go, his happens to be mildly endearing. But as I called it, sort of the peaky blinders put on, shouldn’t detract from the fact that Hatton can really play.

And I think you look at his body of work — in the last two to three weeks he hasn’t been great and he wasn’t especially good at the Match Play. But if you look at his body of work over the last two years, oddly enough, after a wrist/hand issue — and here’s another guy you could look at, though he’s more of a little low ball hitter, that typically is not the best at Augusta — but that’s Daniel Berger, who also had a wrist/hand issue and has rebounded nicely.

I’ll give you Tyrrell Hatton. I’ll give you Danny Berger. I’ll give you Webb Simpson. Again these aren’t prototypes. This is not Jon Rahm, high ball hitter, for the obvious reasons that you like.

Webb — and Brandel and Justin can correct me if I’m wrong here — Webb would fit into the category more of a Patrick Reed — excellent short game; hard, competitive streak; doesn’t give much away.

And he’s a Wake Forest guy. Right? I think he went to Wake on the Arnold Palmer Scholarship. He certainly would know what Augusta National meant to Arnie. But those are a few guys I would throw out there.

Q. To the point about Daniel Berger, and Justin and Brandel you can weigh in on this, he’s had to wait the longest for this because he won the first event out after the restart.

When you’re someone like Daniel Berger who thought that they should have figured out some way to get him in for 2020, he did not. He’s been waiting and now he finally gets this chance, how do you keep yourself mentally focused going into Thursday knowing how long you’ve been waiting for this moment to happen?

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: I don’t think he’d have a hard time keeping mentally focused. Quite the contrary. I think he’s probably never been more focused in his entire life because you work your whole life to have these sorts of opportunities. And you could make an argument that since the restart after the pandemic, there’s been maybe two or three players play as well as Daniel Berger.

So he must realize you can go in and very easily calculate your own World Ranking points accumulated since the pandemic. And he would see right there plain as day, and he would know this as well, that he is amongst a handful of favorites to play well.

So I mean I’m sure it’s focused like using a magnifying glass on the sun on paper. That would be how focused you’d be. And he would be doing everything in his power to have the right mental state.

And in terms of players off the radar, look, it’s a very hard tournament to win if you’re outside the top 15 in the world, flat out. It’s the easiest tournament to predict who is going to win of all of them.

THE PLAYERS would be the hardest. The Masters is the easiest because, one, there’s the smallest field in major championship golf. And some of them are past champions, well past their prime. So it’s even smaller than the number.

And then once The Masters sort of identifies those with the talents necessary to play well there it has more repeat winners than every other major. And basically those talents are, it allows you to have wiggle room off the tee, but if you have the ability to hit high cuts off of hook lies or in the case of the lefties obviously the opposite of that, you’ve got a tremendous advantage at Augusta National.

So ball-striking is important everywhere, of course. But you have to look at players that are capable of hitting high cuts. And because we are asked so many times there, even a back, right hole location on 6 on Sunday is so important. If you think about what Dustin Johnson did last year on Sunday, after bogeying 4 and 5, the hole location’s over on the right on 6, the high cut of his that he only went to in December 2015 is when he stumbled onto that cut. And that’s when he’s done his best work. And that high cut on that hole like 6, you just have to have it.

So I look at sooner or later, another first timer is going to win at Augusta National. So outside of 34 and 35, Fuzzy Zoeller is it. So the question always is, who is the first-time player there or who was the someone with the least amount of experience who is likely to win?

I almost look at November as sort of a wash because you wouldn’t have learned what you needed to know from the November Masters to play in an April Masters. But I look at Will Zalatoris, who is amongst the elite, and I’m talking about the top-five-strokes-gained-tee-to-green players in the world who can show up and — I say surprise; he wouldn’t surprise his peers, but he would surprise the sort of the casual golf fan who mostly tunes in to watch the bigger events and certainly The Masters is one of those.

JUSTIN LEONARD: I was sitting here going through the World Golf Rankings, and there’s always debate on what’s off the radar. It’s hard to say that a player is off the radar if they’re ranked top 25, top 30 in the world. But as Brandel laid out, it’s typically guys up there at the very top of the World Rankings that seem to do well. But I look down and think of a guy like Harris English, a guy who likes to hit high cuts, who’s putting as well as he has in his entire career.

And I think somebody like a Harris English has a great chance playing on a firmer golf course, hitting those high cuts, and obviously he’s played with a lot of confidence through the last two years, and then finally getting that victory back in the fall. He’s somebody that I’m definitely going to be watching with a lot of interest.

Q. Brandel and Justin, curious your thoughts on why Jordan Spieth — and you touched on this a little bit already — why is his game so well suited for Augusta National? Is it as simple as it’s a good draw and there’s a number of holes that set up for a draw? And then obviously the short-game skill-set there. Or is there something more to it than that?

JUSTIN LEONARD: Well, as you know, Augusta National did not allow green reading books. So many players are so used to using those books each and every week and I think for Jordan Spieth, he gets there and he sees the line of putts on the greens and he doesn’t have to go to his book to kind of reconfirm that. I think the fact that he’s got some room off the tee, he understands the angles, hole locations, certain places where you can miss it, other areas where you can’t. And you don’t have to hit the ball perfectly around Augusta National, but you do have to manage where you miss it and when you miss it, and I think that’s something that Jordan has done so well around Augusta National and throughout his entire career.

But I think the big thing is on the greens. He’s just so comfortable there on the greens with his short game, being able to get the ball up-and-down. And it is, it’s going to be at more of a premium assuming the golf course is firm and fast. Ball-striking is going to be important, but got to have your wits about you on the greens, understand where you can miss it and then play the right shot from there.

So, to me, those are his biggest strengths, and I think they’re on display at Augusta National.

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: And I certainly agree with everything that Justin said. I’ll go back to this time and time again. You look at the man who won the most Masters ever, Jack, and his release pattern. You can just scroll through any Masters he won and watch. You can just watch his release pattern and watch how high he finishes. You can see the way his left arm works through impact.

It’s very much sort of the chicken-wing look that Jordan Spieth has. It’s funny how he was criticized for that, so was Jordan Spieth. But the very thing he’s criticized for is the thing that makes him great. It’s his release pattern. And his release pattern goes left to right. And you think about how many times you have a ball above your feet or a hook lie, and if you have a draw, you’ll slam that club into the hill and get a surprise pull left. But if you’re cutting across it, you get no surprise. You hit high soft cuts into the greens and you can always sort of – the ball’s general working left to right on greens that are sloped from front to back. And they stop quicker and more often than not they end up underneath the hole.

It’s a combination of Jordan Spieth being able to, yes, as you said, work it beautifully right to left when he needs to. Mostly he does that with his 3-wood. He’ll hit 3-wood at 13 mostly, he’ll hit 3-wood at 2 mostly, and he’s a smart enough player to know when to hit 3-wood and when he can go with driver.

Beyond that, it’s his extraordinary iron play coupled with his ability to pitch the ball like Phil Mickelson. There’s been very few players come along who have been able to trap — everybody talks about using the bounce. And, look, I get it, how using the bounce works. But Phil didn’t. He trapped it, covered it in his pitch shots. So does Jordan Spieth. They sort of trap cut them in their own way and on tight lies where there’s very little room for mistakes, Jordan Spieth, more often than not, hits the most amazing pitch shots.

The audio on his pitch shots is like Phil Mickelson’s. And it’s like Jose Maria Olazabal’s and Sergio Garcia’s. I mean, these are great pitchers of the ball.

So, again, it’s a place where he gets to show off and the golf course is a perfect fit for him because he’s not the best driver of the golf ball, but it allows you room to recover and then he can work his magic.

RICH LERNER: One other thing I would add — this is obviously not as technical — but if ever a play seemed to be sort of born for a place, it was Spieth. You think about the depth of his experience at Augusta and he’s only 27. In 2014, he’s chasing Bubba (Watson) on Sunday. He led it early and then Bubba pulled away.

2015, he tied what was then Tiger’s scoring record, since broken by Dustin (Justin). 2016 he has the mini meltdown at No. 12 and (Danny) Willett wins. So, he experiences the range of emotions inside of two years.

In 2018, he shoots 64 in the coulda, woulda, shoulda game. Had a chance to be 61 or 62, which I thought at that moment would have been the greatest Sunday in the history of the sport had he come all the way back to win and then (Patrick) Reed ended up winning.

So just the depth of what he’s already experienced there is uncommon at any single venue for any player. He obviously loves it there.

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: And to Rich’s point, he’s the only player since 2000 that’s shot multiple rounds of 64. It is just a perfect fit for him.

Q. Brandel had a great post on Instagram yesterday where he wrote when you watch younger players come up, you wonder if there’s any of him or her left in their swing or are they simply chasing some emulative dream. Could you expound on that and why is being more results-driven tending to yield better results than players who pursue this technical perfection? And of the young guys that you mentioned — Morikawa, Wolff, Scheffler — who has the best shot of winning the Masters?

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: In an age of so much data and information and video to sit down and ponder, there are a lot of ways you can use that. And when I see players chasing some aesthetic ideal, I see them not really ever taking ownership of their game. They essentially turn over their entire swing, ideas, their thoughts to teachers or other people who are around them.

When you see somebody take ownership of their game — and I’m really thinking of Viktor Hovland or Matt Wolff or Collin Morikawa, the players I posted — they take ownership of their game. And there’s vitality in that and there is a certain arrogance in that.

Lee Trevino certainly had that in great quantity. And I think — it’s curious to me, in an age where we have so much data about the golf swing, and there’s so much video on YouTube of all these great golf swings — and I see this even on the LPGA Tour. I see some of the best golf swings losing to golf swings that are more idiosyncratic like Inbee Park. If you looked at Anne van Dam and you looked at Inbee Park on the range, you’d never in a million years guess that Inbee Park can beat Anne van Dam handily. Mind you, Inbee Park beats almost everybody handily. But I think there’s a difference in chasing an aesthetic ideal and learning from the ball flight.

This is one of the great things about Butch Harmon, is that none of his players swing alike. And Butch uses the ball flight more than anything else. He talks about how the ball flight never lies.

And I think these players have come along in an age of data and they’ve used it to shape their strategy, and they’ve used it to sort of complement their, I guess, intuition about how to play the game; but they haven’t used it to conform to an aesthetic ideal or to methods that are everywhere out there in the world.

And every teacher has an idea about how to swing the golf club and they differ. Almost every single teacher differs with one another.

But to see the players come along and look so idiosyncratic and look like — I quoted Bob Dylan in that speech only because the singer Bob Dylan reminds me of the players I was sort of posting about. There’s this beautiful imperfection. There’s this wonderful sloppiness to their work, like a Jackson Pollock painting. You can’t quite make it out but it’s amazing. It works. And I love that about this generation.

And to answer your question, I think Collin Morikawa is the obvious choice, because simply, of all those players I posted, he is the best iron player, he’s the best ball striker, and that allows you to separate yourself from everybody else quicker and more consistently.

RICH LERNER: Brandel, quick comment on top of that because it’s fascinating. But you still play golf; you don’t swing golf. It’s a game to be played. And that’s entirely, the swing — not to minimize the importance of certain sound fundamentals — but you quoted Dylan, I’ll quote Hal Sutton, who said to me once, ‘You show me a guy with a homemade swing and I’ll show you a guy who believes in himself.’ So you think about the long history, right off the top, it’s Arnold. It’s Hubert Green. It’s Lee Trevino. It’s Raymond Floyd.

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: It’s even Jack Nicklaus, by the way.

RICH LERNER: Right.

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: Yeah, Jack Nicklaus’ golf swing would have been nothing that anybody was teaching. You think Jack Nicklaus took up the game in 1950, that was the year that Hogan came back from the accident and won the U.S. Open, and the whole world was in love with that flat golf swing. And Jack came up with this fly-the-right elbow. His swing would have looked as homemade then as Bryson DeChambeau’s does now.

JUSTIN LEONARD: And to throw a couple other names, to prove Brandel’s point, Scottie Scheffler, with his really high hands and his footwork is kind of all over the place. And Joaquín Niemann. Those are two golf swings that you don’t — probably don’t — you probably don’t have a lot of junior players that are putting pictures of those two swings up on above their bed.

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: Right not at all.

JUSTIN LEONARD: But they’re two golf swings that work beautifully for them and there is beauty in imperfections.

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: Think about it. Those are the players that made it at the youngest age — Scottie Scheffler, Joaquín Niemann, Viktor Hovland, Matt Wolff, Collin Morikawa. And you look at those people and say how did these players — go to any driving range at an NCAA event or top amateur event and you’ll see nothing but Adam Scott’s.

I’m not disparaging Adam Scott’s golf swing. It’s amazing. But the point is you’ll see nothing but technical perfection and they didn’t make it. These kids did and it begs the question, ‘How? Why?’ And you have to say at some point it’s empowering to be different.

RICH LERNER: How about Jon Rahm?

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: Jon Rahm, much the same way. You wouldn’t teach that swing. You couldn’t teach that swing.

RICH LERNER: Right.

Q. Brandel, what have you seen in Jordan’s swing that’s different in this little resurgence?

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: Well, if you watch him when he rehearses before he hits a shot now, it’s weird. Even when he’s hitting bunker shots, he’ll make this very flat golf swing and then in transition, he’ll bring his right elbow much closer to his left elbow than I’ve ever seen him, and then he will round it off and sort of curve the hub.

He’ll swing very much around and to the left. The only other person I’ve ever seen make practice swings like that is Jason Dufner. So it would not surprise me in the least if he was not — if he wasn’t taking lessons from Jason Dufner, talking to Jason Dufner about the golf swing, or watching Jason Dufner make golf shots. Or Cameron McCormick is.

RICH LERNER: He has, Brandel. I spoke to their camp at Bay Hill and he has confided in Dufner, which sort of caught me by surprise.

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: There you go, because you can see it in the moves. And, look, anybody who watched Jason Dufner hit golf shots knows that, for a guy who doesn’t have great club head speed, there’s still an audio to his shot that is arresting. And he’s a high-quality ball striker and he’s spent a lot of times studying the swing — mind you it’s a very golf machine-oriented view; but, listen, the answers are wherever you find them.

And this has worked wonders for Jordan to keep from getting stuck. It’s got the club flipping out in front of him again so he can get on top of it. And it’s teacher-speak. We say swing left or whatever, but it’s getting around and getting the club back out in front of him and stop getting it stuck.

Q. D.J. has been doing this for years. Have you seen more guys with the bowed left wrist? You look at Rahm, Morikawa, Hovland, do you think there’s a reason we’re seeing more of this, or just idiosyncrasy that some of these guys share?

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE: I don’t think we’re seeing any more of it. I just think that golf is on TV 24 hours a day so we’re noticing it and we have high-speed video and cameras so we can see it in slow motion. But there was a great teacher, unheralded teacher by the name of Kelvin Miyahira, who almost every teacher today has either, I say steal from, borrowed from, been influenced by — sadly he had a stroke a few years ago.

But Kelvin did a deep dive into the number of bowed left wrists, shut faces, and the majority of major winners since World War II have had bowed left wrists and shut faces. The majority of them. There’s obvious benefits to it in that you have less work to do on the downswing and you only need clear your body as fast as you can to hold off the face. And it helps you hit cut shots which, again, is the more preferable ball flight when it comes to winning major championships for the height with which you can hit it, the way it works left to right, so forth.

But I think the equipment, too, has allowed guys to have stronger grips, which has made the face even more shut at the top; allowed them to sort of hang back a little bit with their upper body, have more spine tilt, stronger grip, and launch it higher. So the equipment is contributing to it to some point, and maybe that’s why you’re seeing even more shut faces. But the bowed left wrist — Palmer was that guy. Claude Harmon was that guy. Loads of players are shut-faced players in the past.

RICH LERNER: I want to say thanks to all the guys. It’s obvious you’re covering this sport and not soccer. Those were some great questions. And we look forward to seeing you guys next week at Augusta.

TRANSCRIPT – DREW BREES INTRODUCTORY CONFERENCE CALL

March 17, 2021 By admin

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Sam Flood

Drew Brees

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today for our call to introduce Drew Brees as the newest member of the NBC Sports team. In just a moment we’ll be joined by Drew as well as NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood. As you all know, it was announced on Monday that Drew will be joining our team as a studio analyst on Football Night in America and as a game analyst for our Notre Dame broadcasts. Let’s begin with opening remarks from Sam Flood.

SAM FLOOD: Thanks, Chris, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We are thrilled that Drew is officially on the NBC Sports team. He scared a bunch of people when he was pushing that sled and getting that massive workout in a few weeks ago, throwing people off the scent and even giving us pause.

But we’re really excited to have a Super Bowl-winning quarterback and future Hall of Famer working for us, coming in in a Super Bowl year, joining Football Night and Notre Dame, and he’ll be part of big events at NBC like the Olympics and the Derby as we go forward, and a perfect year to have him join the Super Bowl out in LA. We can’t wait to get going.

Then for the Notre Dame games, Mike Tirico and Drew will have a lot of fun in South Bend. A Boilermaker calling the Notre Dame games. Should be a fun listen and a good chance to experience college football again, which is one of the things that’s exciting about this deal, touching multiple parts of the company and of the sports world.

With that, we welcome Drew and want to pass it off to you because he’s the person everyone wants to hear from right now. So, Drew, take it away.

DREW BREES: Thank you, Sam, and thank you to everyone who’s tuned in. I could not be more excited to be joining the NBC team. Certainly, in my opinion, it is the best of the best from the top down. My experience thus far with every member of NBC has been first class, and I’m really looking forward to jumping on board. Again, being part of the college football broadcast as a game analyst with Notre Dame football and then as a studio analyst with Football Night in America. I look forward to working very closely with the team, especially Mike Tirico, Rodney Harrison, Tony Dungy and many others.

At this point, I’ll turn it over to everyone for questions, and I’m excited to get started.

Q. Sam, how do you foresee it working out with Mike Tirico and Al Michaels with Al in the last year of his contract and then also with Drew and Cris Collinsworth in terms of Drew potentially doing Sunday Night Football and maybe the Super Bowl one day?

SAM FLOOD: Well, first of all, with Mike and Al, that process, conversations continue. It will be similar to this last year in terms of how we map that out. In terms of the booth for Sunday Night Football and Cris, Cris remains among the best to have ever done it, and the plan is to have him in that chair for a long time. So, the opportunity down the road is not something we’re looking at right now. We’re focused on Football Night in America, the Notre Dame partnership with Mike Tirico, and that’s really what this opportunity is about.

Q. From the Notre Dame side of things, what do you remember about your trips there, however many years ago, and what you may remember coming forward this year when Purdue will actually be their second game?

DREW BREES: Yes, don’t think I didn’t see that on the schedule right away. No, I remember vividly my two experiences at Notre Dame, both in 1998 and 2000. Both games, in my opinion, we should have won and somehow, someway Touchdown Jesus got us in the end. But I’m extremely excited to be in the booth with Mike Tirico broadcasting those Notre Dame games. There’s no question that that is really one of the epicenters of college football. The history and the nostalgia that exists there and I think just what that place represents to so many people, it is a special place.

I will say this, I will be impartial for every game with the exception of the Purdue game because my bloodlines run deep with the black and gold and the Boilermakers.

But on a serious note, I’m excited to be a part of that and really continue, I think, the legacy of what Notre Dame football has meant to so many and obviously extremely excited to be in the booth with Mike Tirico.

Q. Even though you’re not initially doing the booth for the NFL, any quarterback coming into this business these days is going to be judged a little bit against what Tony Romo has done. What do you think about the way he made that transition and how much of what he’s done do you kind of study as a template for how you might make that transition?

DREW BREES: Sure, I think Tony has done a great job. I think that what Tony did was — I think he very quickly showed football fans everywhere just the way that an NFL quarterback can see and process the game, and it’s obviously maybe much different than what they’ve seen or heard before.

Obviously, he’s had a ton of success and, listen, Tony has his own style, and I think that the best piece of advice that I’ve gotten so far when stepping into this business and stepping into the booth is just to be yourself. I think that’s exactly what Tony has done. I think that if you look at all the great broadcasters from Cris Collinsworth to Troy Aikman to Jon Gruden to all the guys from history, man, everybody had their own style, right? John Madden. You certainly want the fans to kind of get a glimpse into the way that you see and process the game but also feel your love and passion for the game.

I think that’s what was so intriguing about this transition from being a player to going into the booth is that I love this game, and I love watching this game, I love talking about this game, and it gives me the opportunity to stay very closely connected, to show my love and passion for the game but in a different way, and also for fans to get a glimpse into how I see it, how I process it. And then the trick is to be able to articulate that in a way where fans can not only understand it, but I want them to walk away from the game after listening to me talk about it saying, ‘Man, I know a lot more about the game now’ or ‘I know a lot more about that play or that team’ or ‘I have a new appreciation for it’ and also feel that it was very entertaining.

Q. With everything you have going on with your pro football career, how much Notre Dame football have you been able to watch recently? And within that question, what are your impressions of the Notre Dame program at this point?

DREW BREES: You know, ironically, I watched quite a few games last year. Obviously, they had a phenomenal run. It was fun to watch them on that journey. I feel like just from watching them this last year, I got a bit of a feel for their team and their style of play, their offense. Obviously, they had those two big games with Clemson along the way, as well, so those were fun to watch.

Obviously it’s one thing to watch it on TV, it’s another thing as you begin to really study the team and study their personnel and the coaching staff and just — college football is so interesting, right, because you get your recruiting class that comes in, and in most cases you know that you’re going to have these guys for four, five years, and so you build your team, you build your program off of that. Obviously, the NFL can be very different from the perspective that, man, the complexion of a team can change very quickly from year to year with free agency and the draft, etc., etc.

I’m interested to dive back into college football and understand the style that’s being played. I think more so now than ever, you see this crossover of NFL and college. You’ve got coaches that are jumping back and forth, and I think you have the styles of play that are beginning to mimic each other because you have quarterbacks going from college football into the pros and they’re so versatile, they’re so athletic, they can do so many things that you see these offenses in the NFL skew more towards really catering towards the skill set of those players coming from college.

I’m really intrigued to dive into it and understand it further, study it further.

Q. Just wondering when you were at Purdue, had broadcasting been something that you always thought about? Just thinking that former Purdue QBs Bob Griese and Len Dawson have had successful broadcasting careers.

DREW BREES: You know, I probably didn’t think about it until two or three years ago. I’ve always loved watching football, even when I wasn’t playing it. People would always ask me, ‘Do you go home and just shut the TV off because you just have had enough of it?’ And I was like, ‘No, absolutely not.’ I love the game. I’m a fan of the game. I love watching college football, I love watching NFL. So, if a game is on, I’m typically watching it. Usually I’m sitting back and watching it from a quarterback’s perspective, I’m studying the game, I’m studying the offense, trying to anticipate what moves are going to be made on both sides of the ball. That’s kind of the way we process it as a quarterback.

Over the years I really started listening to commentators and listening to their delivery and how they would set things up and the topics they would choose to talk about and the game became even more interesting that way just feeling like that was something that I could transition to.

I’d say the defining moment for me was a few years ago, actually before the NFL season started. I believe this would have been 2017. I flew my family up to Indianapolis because Purdue was hosting Louisville and Lamar Jackson in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. It was before our NFL season had started. We had a weekend off, so flew the family up there to watch the Boilermakers and was watching the game and was invited into the studio to chat football and the upcoming season, but also to comment on the game.

I’m telling you, when I put those headphones on and I started seeing the game from that vantage point and then beginning to talk about it, it was like the lightbulb went on, and I said, ‘Man, I can do this and I would love it and I think I could be really good at it.’ I think that’s when I started to think about it and take it serious.

Q. How much does football and the preparation of it, how much do you think that transfers over to the studio?

DREW BREES: I think it transfers a lot because, listen, I went from playing the game to now talking about the game, right? There’s a way that I would study opponents. There’s a way that I would prepare to go out and play my very best. I think the analysis of a game, of an opponent, of a team, is very much the same in that regard.

From that perspective, I think that especially having a great familiarity with the teams certainly in the NFL and once I have a chance to really study Notre Dame, I think that you’ll begin to anticipate, have a really great understanding both offensively and defensively what’s happening. Be able to anticipate what’s coming, the things that are happening. You watch players grow and develop and mature and you’re able to talk about that. I just think there’s so many positive themes and so many great things that we’re going to be able to talk about, and also just allow fans to see the game obviously, again, from a quarterback’s perspective and a guy who’s fresh out of the NFL game and certainly sees and processes a game differently than probably what they’ve heard before.

Q. You have obviously talked a lot in the past about feeling like you could play until you were 45. I probably would have taken the over on 20 years. What ultimately made you come to peace with this being the time and feeling like you were ready to walk away?

DREW BREES: Well, you know, you’ve heard me say this before. The last — I’d say ever since the 2017 season — I have truly approached each season like it could be my last. I’ve approached the off-season that way and then I’ve approached each and every game during the season that way. There was no additional pressure with that because I really tried to play every game like it was the Super Bowl, like it was the most important game of the season. So my preparation was always the same. It was always consistent. I always wanted to put my absolute best on the field every time out.

What I started to do was just enjoy some of the little things a bit more, the bus rides home, the plane rides home, the locker room after, just smell the roses, so to speak, and really just stay in the moment and enjoy it, and knowing if something happened where all of a sudden it was an injury or something and that was my last game, then I know that I poured everything I could into it.

I’ve just approached each year for the last four or five years that way, with that mindset, and I feel like that’s served me well. I think I’ve played some of my best football during that time.

At the end of the day, the factors that go into this are — I’ve always said as long as I could play the game at a high level, I’m having fun doing it and able to stay healthy — then this is something I’ll do forever. Obviously I’ve had some injuries the last two years that have been frustrating, both of them kind of freak things. I don’t think they were injuries that were saying I was getting old, but nonetheless, I have the thumb that holds me out five games two years ago and then had the ribs and the lung that holds me out for four games this past year. Could I keep playing? Yeah, I’m sure I could, but I’m also looking at my kids, my family, the age of my kids, and just gauging all of those things, there’s a balance there.

I also just felt like I would just feel it. I would feel when it was time. And I felt that it was time.

Q. Obviously you played college football in West Lafayette and played the Colts numerous times in your career, now you’re going to be going to South Bend in the fall for college football Saturdays. What stands out to you about the passion of fans from the state of Indiana, and did Notre Dame show any interest in you as a recruit out of Westlake High School?

DREW BREES: No, Notre Dame did not show me any interest and I do not blame them because there was nothing memorable about me, I don’t think, as a high school quarterback, or certainly nothing that would have jumped off the page. We had a ton of success as a high school program, and we never lost a game, won a state championship my senior year, went 16-0 and won the 5A State championship, I was the 5A State Player of the Year.

But I really wasn’t recruited by anybody. I was recruited by Purdue and Kentucky, and then I’d say the only reason I was recruited by those guys is because they had two brand new head coaches, Joe Tiller coming to Purdue from Wyoming, and Hal Mumme came from Valdosta State to Kentucky. Both of them had spread offenses, and both of them had gotten hired in late December and had to throw together a recruiting class, so those guys I think just kind of went out and took who they could get at that point, and I certainly ended up in the right place at Purdue, got an incredible education and four years of Big Ten football where we went to bowl games every year and won a Big Ten Championship and had a Rose Bowl appearance my senior year.

I would say the passion of the fans in Indiana — it’s a shame that that Purdue-Notre Dame annual match-up went away for a while. I hope that it comes back in perpetuity at some point. I’m really happy to see that Purdue will be at Notre Dame this year. That’ll be a great matchup and kind of renew that rivalry.

But when I got to Purdue, man, we were playing Notre Dame every year, we were playing IU every year, so just these in-state rivalries, and you’re playing for the Old Oaken Bucket or you’re playing for the Shillelagh (Trophy), all these trophies that are involved in the games and the history, and obviously the state is divided because you’ve got all these alums from three schools all spread out, it just made for an incredible atmosphere.

Q. You mentioned what you’ve seen and learned from Tony Romo in his transition. Have you had a chance to talk to him about that transition, and if so, what did he say?

DREW BREES: You know what, I have not talked to Tony yet, but he’s certainly on my list of people to talk to.

Q. You’ve of course been the Saints’ unquestioned quarterback for 15 years. How did you tell your teammates of your decision to retire and what message did you give Jameis (Winston) and Taysom (Hill) about carrying on the torch?

DREW BREES: Yeah, I’ve had some great conversations with my teammates. I think really over the last few years, I’ve been very up front about my mindset going into every season, and that is I’m going to play every season like it’s my last, and I will take time at the end of each season to evaluate where I am, both mentally, emotionally, physically and then make that decision one way or the other.

I’ve taken that time the last few off-seasons to do that. I think everybody probably felt like this was going to be my last year, and I think that created a great sense of urgency for all of us as we made our way through the season and had a very successful season.

I’m really excited for the opportunity that both Taysom Hill and Jameis Winston have. I can’t tell you how much fun we had together as a quarterback room, really a great group of guys, a great group of human beings — guys that really love the game of football, love their teammates. We love to work hard. We love to push each other. It was highly competitive. At the same time, we were there to support one another and help one another because we just wanted the team to win.

As you saw last year, there were moments where Taysom obviously had to start and did a phenomenal job for four years. There was a moment where Jameis had to come off the bench in the second half of the 49ers game when I had the ribs and the lung injury, and he came in and did a phenomenal job. I’ve seen so much growth and maturity from both of those guys over the last few years for Taysom and then last year for Jameis.

We’ll see how it plays out. It sounds like there’s going to be a pretty good quarterback competition, but it’s going to bring out the best in both of them.

Q. I was wondering what was the most difficult part of ultimately making that decision to walk away from the game?

DREW BREES: This decision was, of course, it’s a difficult one. I think the biggest thing is you have been a football player for so long, going back — I’ll count high school because high school football was very important to me. From high school to college to the NFL, that’s 28 years, so that’s two-thirds of my life. I’m 42 years old, so for two-thirds of my life, every decision that I’ve made has had football as the focus. Every decision you make is based on you as a football player, what’s going to help you be in the best position to succeed as a football player, every decision from the perspective of diet, what you’re putting in your body and how you’re working out and how you’re recovering and the amount of time you’re dedicating yourself to being the very best you can be at your craft.

You know, I understand why guys have such a hard time with the transition from football. I would compare it to if you are a heart surgeon and you have trained a majority of your life to be the very best heart surgeon that you can be, from college to your postgraduate studies to med school to your residency to then finally becoming a doctor, being a heart surgeon, having the chance to do something that so few get to do, but you’ve trained your whole life and have these dreams and ambitions of becoming this and all of a sudden, you wake up one day and somebody tells you you can’t do it anymore.

I get that — I’d say that’s where the biggest maybe fear and stress for most guys is, just from conversations I’ve had with so many, is man, there is a transition. There is a transition from playing the game to going and doing anything else because you can’t replicate the locker room and you can’t replicate running out of the tunnel. There’s just moments and feelings and emotions that are really, really hard to replicate after you’ve been a professional football player.

Now, I think the great thing about the opportunity that I have is, number one, I transitioned from one incredible team to another incredible team with NBC, the best of the best. I transitioned from a locker room, where man, I had so many great relationships and so much love and appreciation and administration for the people that I work with. I know this — Mike Tirico has been one of my favorite guys in the business for a very long time, and I’m as excited to be in the booth with Mike Tirico as I was to throw passes to Michael Thomas on Sundays, and I’m dead serious when I say that.

I get to talk about the game of football. I get to eat, sleep and breathe the game of football still. I get to show my love and passion for the game still, but just in a different way.

I feel like that’s certainly what will help ease the transition for me from being a player to now this role.

Q. What’s your ultimate goal? Do you want to do a Super Bowl? What’s your ultimate goal as a broadcaster?

DREW BREES: Most importantly for me, I want to create as great a fan experience as I can. I know what it’s like to watch a game, and I know what I would want to hear while I’m watching a game. I think what’s so unique, again, about the position that we’re in as an NFL quarterback, now transitioning into the booth, is I’m excited to show fans how I see the game and how I process the game and the things that I’m thinking about and the things that I’m anticipating and articulating it in a way that’s both educational and enjoyable to listen to.

Listen, I’m going to have my own style. I don’t even know what that style is yet, but I’m going to be myself, and I’m going to talk as if you’re sitting right next to me in my living room and we’re just watching the game together.

It’s going to be as authentic as it can possibly be because that’s the only way I know how. I hope people enjoy it. I hope people love it. At the end of the day I am going to work as hard at this as I do everything in my life.

And as far as what the future holds, I have no idea, but I do know I’m a part of the best team in the business with NBC, with one of the very best play-by-play guys in the business in Mike Tirico, and others that will be great mentors for me, guys like Cris Collinsworth, guys like Al Michaels and others that are part of the NBC team and I think do a phenomenal job. I’m very excited with this opportunity.

Q. A lot of people in New Orleans are wondering if you and your family will continue living in the city as much as you have during your time with the Saints, or if you will now relocate to San Diego or somewhere else. Just was wondering if you could take a moment to discuss what you and your family envision on that front.

DREW BREES: We will always have a strong presence in New Orleans. I have more things going on in the city of New Orleans right now than I have since we’ve been there. I’m sure you might have seen the article that just came out in regards to the proposal we submitted for the RFQ for the Jazzland Six Flags piece of property, where we intend to bring a nonprofit urban farming initiative that’s just going to be incredible for that community, for New Orleans East.

There’s that, and there’s about three other things that will slowly become public knowledge over the next weeks and months.

I’m as excited about that as I have been about anything that we’ve ever done in New Orleans, and honestly I feel that now, not being a football player, that I will have more of an opportunity to be involved in community initiatives and helping continue to push New Orleans forward as we’ve always tried to do.

TRANSCRIPT – NBC SPORTS NFL WILD CARD PLAYOFFS CONFERENCE CALL

January 6, 2021 By admin

Wednesday, January 6, 2021

THE MODERATOR: Thanks for joining us on today’s call.

This weekend we’re excited to present a pair of primetime games as part of the NFL Super Wild Card Weekend. We have Tampa Bay at Washington on Saturday night, which will be called by Mike Tirico, Tony Dungy, and Kathryn Tappen. Then Sunday night, it’s the Browns and the Steelers, called by Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth, and Michele Tafoya. This also marks the first ever NFL game streamed on Peacock and the first NFL playoff game on the Telemundo broadcast network.

Joining us on today’s call are the Chairman of NBC Sports Group, Pete Bevacqua, our Sunday Night Football executive producer Fred Gaudelli, and our two announce teams for this weekend: Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth, Mike Tirico, and Tony Dungy. Each will have an opening comment and then we’ll take your questions.

With that I’ll turn it over to NBC Sports Group Chairman, Pete Bevacqua.

PETE BEVACQUA: Hello, everybody. Happy New Year.

Certainly an exciting week for us as we head into this weekend. I just wanted to start by thanking Fred and Drew and our entire production, engineering, and announce teams. To think about what everybody has gone through this year, it’s been a trying year, a difficult year, and we want to salute the NFL and all of the teams for pulling off a very successful year under, as I said, very trying circumstances.

For us, certainly a good moment. It looks like we’re very much on pace to be our 10th year as the number one show on primetime. That literally has never been done before. So that again is both exciting and a real testament to the great work of our team that you’ll hear from.

As we head into this Sunday, we’re so excited about this Super Wild Card Sunday and the two primetime matchups we have. When you think about the quarterbacks we have, Tom Brady, Alex Smith, Ben Roethlisberger, and Baker Mayfield, I don’t think we could ask for better matchups.

We’re not only excited to have these two great games on NBC, but we’re also really excited for Sunday night for the first time ever to stream an NFL game, a Wild Card game, on Peacock. We’re also going to have it on Telemundo. We think we’re set up for what should really be a great weekend of NFL football.

FRED GAUDELLI: I’m going to echo a little bit of what Pete said. I’m really grateful to be here, having made it through 19 regular-season games this year with just a few hiccups along the way.

I think when we talked back in late August, we talked about adapt and adjust. That certainly happened pretty much on a weekly basis this year.

I just wanted to say thanks to our engineering, operations, production, our emergency health and services department, for all the constant adjustments that had to be made throughout the season to put the show on the air, with little disruption to the production of the show.

It’s great to be in the Wild Card round. It’s great to be in the NFL Playoffs. The league did a phenomenal job. I don’t think many people thought we’d get to the end of the season on time, and we have. Hopefully a lot of excitement yet to come.

AL MICHAELS: I think doing the Browns’ first playoff game in 18 years to me is both very cool and now totally full of mystery. Kevin Stefanski, Joel Bitonio, and others out of commission, but you still have Mayfield and Chubb and Hunt and Landry against that Steelers defense in a really good matchup.

The Steelers of course had that swale period after the 11-0 start. Seemed to get it back together when they had to against the Colts in Week 16. Once again, Mike Tomlin has really done a superb job. It gets sometimes lost in the shuffle. Here is a guy who has been there since 2007, has never had a losing season.

You have two cities within driving distance, a good rivalry. As my pal, the late great Keith Jackson would say, they don’t like each other very much. It should be a good watch.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: You talked about the mystery of the Cleveland Browns a little bit. How about the mystery of the Pittsburgh Steelers this year? Just got finished watching them on offense against the Colts. Of course, they had been struggling and trying to work their way through some things.

First half, honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Steelers look worse on offense. Second half, they looked like they could beat anybody in the league, and they were the team that went 11-0.

This is a mysterious team. The constant is on the defensive side. On the offensive side, I just don’t know what we’re going to see in this game. But I do know the history of this franchise. It’s a proud franchise. So many times, when you start to think you might be able to count them out, they just make you look foolish and come back and do it all over again. That’s what I expect. I expect their best out there on Sunday night.

What do you think, Michael, about Mr. Tom Brady?

MIKE TIRICO: It is pretty cool to see Tom Brady play a playoff game for the first time not in a New England uniform. It will be very different. The Buccaneers and their fans have been waiting since 2007 for a playoff game, haven’t won a playoff game since back in Super Bowl XXXVII. When they signed up for all of this, this is what they hoped to see, Tom Brady leading them to the playoffs.

I’m sure we’re going to have a very interested fan base there in central Florida. Obviously very interested in Washington and the DMV surrounds with the Washington Football Team winning the division at 7-9, which a lot of folks didn’t expect anybody to emerge in that NFC East division with a chance, but their pass-rush certainly will give them one.

I’m sure we’ll also have a lot of interested viewers up in the six states we call New England. For the Patriots fans over the years who got used to January evenings and late afternoons watching Tom Brady in the playoffs, they’ll be watching, but with very different emotions. I think you put all that together, we’ve got a really fascinating end to the Super Wild Card Weekend.

Tony, just in talking with you about the game Sunday night, as we were back in the studio together, and early this week, you’re really excited to, one, get to see Tom Brady in the playoffs, but this time from up in the booth instead of across the field on the opposite sideline.

TONY DUNGY: You’re right. It’s going to be much more pleasurable. I’m actually at the Tampa Bay practice right now. You talked about that excited fan base. I live here in Tampa. It is totally fired up and pumped up for Saturday night.

I have never seen Tom Brady play any better than these last four weeks. It’s been awesome to look at. His team is fired up around him.

But Washington, it’s going to be a great matchup because they have the antidote. They have a very strong defense, they have a great front four, young, fast, aggressive people. It’s going to be great to see. I’m looking forward to calling my first NFL playoff game.

Q. I believe it’s the Sunday game you’re simulcasting on Peacock. Going forward, do you see simulcasting things on Peacock? Is that a one-off thing?

PETE BEVACQUA: You’re right. Our Sunday game is the one that will be on Peacock, obviously as well as NBC. When we talked to the NFL, when the additional Wild Card games became available, we negotiated for one of them, it was important for us to also acquire the rights for Peacock. Peacock is obviously a major part of our future. We are seeing that sports on Peacock really does have great success. We’ve seen success with the Premier League, with the U.S. Open. We’ll continue to chart that success.

We have made no decisions necessarily about the future of additional games on Peacock. We’re just excited about this first game on Peacock this Sunday. We’re looking forward to seeing how it is received by the fan base.

Q. For anyone who wants to answer it, Boston’s hometown team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Everyone talks about Tom Brady, but I’m curious about the other guy. Rob Gronkowski, played 16 games this year, numbers were a little bit down, but he did catch seven touchdowns. What have you seen from Gronk and how important is he to the offense?

TONY DUNGY: I think he’s very important. He has rounded into form. Obviously when you don’t play for a year, it takes a little while to get back. I think he’s done that. At first it was more in the blocking, then he got more comfortable, and now you see him kind of back to his old form. I think he’s going to be very much a force in the playoffs. He’s someone that Tom has looked to in this final stretch of the year. He’s looked more like the Rob Gronkowski we’re used to this last month of the season.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: I agree. I know when we were getting ready for our game with Tampa, his shoulder just was not right. I’ve watched Gronkowski block for hundreds of games, and he simply wasn’t right. I think now that’s getting healthier, I think his legs are getting under him. You throw Antonio Brown into that mix, starting to round into form, they’re starting to look pretty good.

Q. Pete, how would you describe your level of interest in keeping Sunday Night Football?

PETE BEVACQUA: I would say it’s tremendously high. The NFL partnership for us is obviously of extreme importance. When you talk about how I started the conversation that we’ve been fortunate enough to have the number one show on primetime television now for hopefully 10 years in a row. We all know what a great property the NFL is. So it is an absolute priority for us to retain our partnership with the NFL, 100%.

Q. Al and Cris, on Sunday, did you get any feedback from either the NFL or the Eagles about your stance on how they played the quarterback position on Sunday?

AL MICHAELS: I haven’t. We’re doing it in real-time. That’s what we felt at that moment in time. I thought it was appropriate considering what was going on to reflect what I think most of the fandom felt, not only New York but the rest of the country.

No, I haven’t heard anything. Have you, Cris?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: Nothing. No. Sometimes I do (laughter). Sometimes I do. This is one I didn’t.

Q. Fred, I think last I’ve seen there won’t be fans in Washington, there probably won’t be in Pittsburgh. If that is the case, is there anything you can do differently in the booth, on the field to create or display that playoff atmosphere that won’t be there from the fans?

FRED GAUDELLI: Well, I know Washington already said they won’t have fans. Pittsburgh I think will have 2,500. I think they’re hopeful that there could be 6,500. I’m not sure where that stands. 6,500 people in 70,000-seat stadium still looks empty.

I think we do what we did the entire season. We had for different games some fan component, whether it was fans virtually or bringing back shots that people could relate to. When we did the game in Buffalo, we talked about the Bills Mafia. When we did the game in New Orleans, we rolled in a package of all their fans. There wasn’t a way that Aaron Rodgers would have been able to operate the way he did that night if it had been a typical game in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

We met this morning, our production team did, and we talked about the Browns fans, what this means for them. Obviously you’re talking about two very passionate fan bases when you talk about Cleveland and Pittsburgh. There might be an element or two in this game regarding the fans.

But in terms of shooting or covering it, I don’t expect we’d be doing anything differently.

Q. Pete, to follow up on your answer regarding NBC’s interest in Sunday Night Football, philosophically would that interest extend if somehow the NFL wanted to parcel out a different package to NBC? I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but is that presumption you’re interested in being in the NFL business, you want some NFL football, if it turned out to be another package, NBC’s interest remains the same?

PETE BEVACQUA: I would tell you again, we think the NFL is a special property. Obviously from my role in our Sports group, it’s a priority for us to retain that partnership. But I would also tell you that we are very much singularly focused right now on retaining Sunday Night Football. It’s worked incredibly well for us really because of the power of the schedule, the power of the matchups, the power of the NFL brand.

Quite frankly, it’s because of the people on this phone call starting with Fred and Al and Cris and Michele and the great work they’ve done. We’ve seen how Mike, Tony, Kathryn, and others, Rob Hyland, all the great work we do with Football Night in America. It’s a time slot and a platform that has worked so well for us on NBC, I think we have a real ability to make big, important events bigger and more important. I think we’ve proven that with Sunday Night Football.

Our hope is that we can continue to do that well into the future.

Q. Fred, talked to a lot of producers and broadcasters about the Zoom calls you guys have done in lieu of production meetings. There’s a lot of thought this may become the norm for teams, particularly in the NFL where instead of meeting with people in person, you end up doing these on Zoom. Do you have any thoughts heading forward, if you think what’s been so standard for you guys, production meetings at a hotel or facility, will still happen, or do you think teams will adapt what’s been going on in the post-COVID universe?

FRED GAUDELLI: I hope they don’t adopt what’s going on right now. I think the thing I miss more than anything the entire year, the NFL plays into it, is just the human touch; shaking somebody’s hand, slapping them on the back, whatever you want to say. There’s value to that. You get to know people by sitting in a room and talking with them through the years.

Tom Brady, Drew Brees or Peyton Manning games, you’re going to lose something if it’s just Zoom. Now, I can see Zoom being used in situations where it’s a tight week or the team is getting in late or something like that. But it’s funny, two quarterbacks this year bemoaned the fact we were on Zoom: Aaron Rodgers two weeks ago, and Drew Brees early in the season.

I’m not going to say every player misses it, but they expressed the fact that they wish they could be sitting there. There is no way I’m a proponent for doing it this way going forward.

Q. Tony, could you shed some light on the decision Ron Rivera has for this weekend with his quarterback. Alex Smith has taken them this far, but I’m also sure you saw the game, he’s not 100%. How do you manage that as a coach, communicate that with the players?

TONY DUNGY: It’s really a difficult call. You know your team responds to Alex, you know he’s the best option for you to win, but you don’t want to put him out there if he doesn’t have a chance to be himself. That’s what you try to gauge during practice. You’re going to give him every opportunity, even if he’s not 100%. If he can win the game, you want to let him do that.

The question becomes how effective is he going to be? That’s always a difficult call. But I can tell you any head coach is going to give his starting quarterback, his ace, every opportunity. He’s going to bend over backwards to make that happen. It’s only going to be a situation where you say no, Alex really is going to struggle if we put him in.

I expect to see him out there at least starting the ball game.

Q. Tony and Cris, what does Washington have to do to pull off the upset here?

TONY DUNGY: They have to deal with the tempo of Tampa. Tampa wants to get big plays on offense and they want to pressure you on defense. It’s going to be up to their front to get pressure on Tom Brady so they can use seven guys in coverage and take away that big play, the quick strike from Tampa.

Then on the other side of the ball, they’re going to have to handle the pressure. Todd Bowles is going to bring heat. They’ve got to deal with it, not turn the ball over, then make a big play here and there. I don’t think they’re going to have to put up 40 points to win, but they’re going to have to take advantage, make some plays.

They’ll have an opportunity to do that.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: I think the health of Terry McLaurin is going to be really key in that game. Tony is dead on. I remember the Green Bay game earlier this year [against Tampa Bay]. Green Bay jumped out to a 10-0 lead. I’m not sure they scored another point. They blitzed them relentlessly. Green Bay had no answer. It was amazing to watch it.

This is a first-class blitzing team. I think they’re missing Devin White in the game. So big plays have to be had. Terry McLaurin, you have to hope that he’s even healthier than what he was a week ago.

Q. Fred, how do you mix stadium sound with no fans, which is probably going to happen in D.C., and with some fans that you’ll have for the Steelers-Browns game? What have you learned from the setup this year you might be able to incorporate moving forward as things improve?

FRED GAUDELLI: Well, in terms of answering your first question, it won’t be the first time we have fans at a stadium this year. We did two games in Kansas City. I think we had fans in Arizona, maybe a couple other places. It’s really just a mix. You’re obviously going to play up the real fans. You will backfill with some of the artificial sound that all the networks have been utilizing this year.

The one thing we leaned into in the second half of the season was the sound coming off the field. Because there’s little or no one in the stadium, those sounds were heard in a way, I’ll reference the game in Vegas with Patrick Mahomes and Derek Carr, we were hearing things that you would never, ever hear before.

As it got colder, we know that’s more conducive to sound, getting natural sound off the field. It’s really just a mix issue, how you want to profile the different sounds that you’re getting and prioritize them.

Obviously Al, Cris, and Michele, number one priority. The other part of it is really leaning into the field with the opportunities that no fans provided this year in that regard.

Going forward, there were a lot of lessons learned this year. I know I’ve made quite a few notes, I’ll probably take a look at that once this season is over.

Q. Al or Cris, even Tony, when it comes to Steelers-Browns, it’s hard to ignore how tilted this rivalry has been towards Pittsburgh recently and historically. Some people don’t like to call it a rivalry, at least not any more. Is this maybe finally the era of Browns football, they can get over that hump that’s two hours to the east?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: You know what’s kind of interesting about it is that now the Cleveland Browns are the power football team. The Pittsburgh Steelers are the throw-it-quick, passing kind of team. Forever you always thought of the Steelers as being this really going to thump you, get down to the fourth quarter, they have a four-point lead, they’re just got going to give up the ball, they’re going to run it right down the field. They’re going to play renegade, all the different things that go with it (laughter).

Now the Cleveland Browns have some ability, bad weather, multiple backs, catch-and-run kind of situations, a mobile quarterback. So I think they bring a good bit of it. Really, this Browns offensive line going against the Steelers defensive line is going to be one of the real highlights for me. I wish Joel Bitonio was going to be able to play in this thing, one of the best guards in football.

It’s power against power now. It’s really made the rivalry a little bit better for me.

TONY DUNGY: I’ll speak from my experience as a player and a coach. It’s always going to be a rivalry. I think there was a time when the Browns had never won a game in Three Rivers Stadium or hadn’t won in years and years. They were still knock-down, drag-out dogfights. Every time we went to Cleveland, it was a dogfight.

That is going to be there. I think you’re going to see the same type of game Sunday night.

AL MICHAELS: I’ll weigh in. Nothing lasts forever. Even though it’s been a one-sided rivalry, I think it’s the dawn of maybe a new era here. Pittsburgh is annually good and Cleveland should be pretty good for a number of years when you have a really good quarterback, a lot of fun. You have a great running back, a great offensive line. You have a head coach who did a hell of a job this year.

I think Cleveland-Pittsburgh is one of the better rivalries going forward.

Q. Fred, Mike, and Tony, what kind of conversations go on before the game talking about how much you talk with the name change throughout the broadcast for the casual viewers tuning in for the first time? Mike and Tony, what is it like calling Washington just by ‘Washington’ or ‘The Team’ rather than their former name? Is that something you have to stay conscious of throughout the broadcast?

MIKE TIRICO: The whole calling them the ‘Washington Football Team,’ obviously it’s an adjustment because we’ve called them something else our whole lives, our whole careers. I found doing it in studio for the 17 weeks of the year, you know, sometimes you get close to saying it, but kind of correct yourself or catch yourself beforehand.

You do your best. We’re all only human. You do your best during the week to practice that, make sure when it happens on Saturday night that it happens naturally.

Certainly, in terms of the football stuff, here we are in the playoff game. There’s been a lot of stuff that’s happened with the organization during the year. Here you are at a playoff game, which is one of the most significant moments of the season. You want to keep your focus on the game. The team has been on plenty of times during the year for all of the conversations that have taken place.

That’s at least how you approach it. But you come prepared for everything because you never know when something could become a significant topic on short notice.

FRED GAUDELLI: I would just say it’s a playoff game. We know what’s at stake. But even last week one of the things that we were talking about, whether it be the name change, the league’s investigation, the strife within the ownership, none of it is new. It’s pretty much been happening since the beginning of the season.

Other than using it the way I know Al used it the other night at the top of the show, forced to change your name for the first time in 87 years, turmoil with the ownership, it paints a picture, especially as it relates to (Ron) Rivera, along with the fact that he was battling cancer, what he had to overcome, Alex (Smith), what he had to overcome, but I don’t think it really warrants any deep inspection because there really isn’t any news at the moment. It’s something that, as Mike just said, has been ongoing really since the summer.

Q. Al, during the last telecast, you said people said the NFL’s TV ratings are down. They went from number one to number one, which is a pretty good line. My question about ratings is this: when did ratings, which is this arcane measurement that nobody outside the business cared about, become this political football where everybody wants to weigh in on the NFL’s ratings, good, bad or indifferent?

AL MICHAELS: That’s a great question. I think a lot of it has to do with — oh, how shall I put this — entertainment websites and the rest. We’re always talking about box office, this movie, that movie, the whole thing.

Ratings, they’re in this mix. I only say this because even all the people I know who are not in the business say to me, we heard the ratings are tanking. I mean, to me, the reality is, if we’re tanking then the whole world is tanking. I just threw that out there the other night. It’s a line I’ve used privately with a lot of people.

I said, ‘yeah, we went from number one to number one.’ It’s still the number one show on television. It’s still I think appointment television for a lot of people. Even though the ratings are down, I think we live in this world right now where we’re measuring everything against what took place in the past. When I have to see a headline that says: Sunday Night ratings get sacked, I’m thinking, excuse me? Sacked means we were No. 15 or 20.

Anyway, that’s the way I look at it. Like I say, as Pete mentioned at the top of this conference call, 10 years in a row being number one on television is pretty good. I don’t want to say it’s painful, but it’s a little frustrating to read about our ratings are getting sacked.

FRED GAUDELLI: I want to add on here, obviously it was the most unusual of years in a number of reasons. The political environment, COVID, sports playing out of season, major events happening out of season. It affected everybody. It affected every sport, every network.

Next year you might be writing, they’re up, like, 25% or 30%. To me it’s always a cyclical thing. The context that Al used there is the perfect thing. You’re still number one. There’s nothing to be ashamed of being number one.

Q. Cris and Tony, could you talk about the effect it’s going to have Baker Mayfield not to have Kevin Stefanski? Do either of you know Alex Van Pelt very well?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: I know Alex has called a few games in the past. Those guys are going to work so closely together even this week. Tony knows a lot more about play calling and how all that works within the coaching staff. For the most part, I think the game plan is going to be put together virtually like it’s been all season. Kevin will have a lot to do with that.

Then Alex is going to call the plays on the field. But the NFL has also evolved to the point where so many of the calls are actually made by the quarterback. They give you an option of plays, audibles out there. The fact that there’s no crowd out there to disrupt the communication for an offensive football team, I think you’ll lose a little bit, to be perfectly honest with you. I think you’ll lose a little bit of having potentially the Coach of the Year on the field.

But as far as the pure play calling, other than the fact it’s the biggest game in the last couple of decades for the Cleveland Browns, it’s going to add some pressure to the whole thing.

Maybe in some ways it takes a little pressure off. They’re going to be running the same plays, still be turning around, handing it to Nick Chubb, throwing it to Kareem Hunt, getting Jarvis Landry involved. They’re going to be doing the same stuff.

Every once in a while, it’s nice to look over at your head coach, get a nod or a pat on the back and that will make a difference, too.

TONY DUNGY: No doubt, Cris, they’re going to miss Kevin Stefanski not being there on the sidelines. The actual mechanics of it are not going to be that difficult. They’re all in the process of formulating the game plan and the calls. What Alex Van Pelt wants to know, what Kevin Stefanski wants to know, is what play is Baker Mayfield really comfortable with. It’s that crucial 3rd and 5, what does he feel good about? Alex will have a good feel for that.

I sat on the headphones for seven years with Tom Moore, he called every play. There was never a play that he called that I was surprised. I didn’t think we were going to call that on 3rd and 6. I would have never thought that. Everybody is on the same page. It’s just those critical moments when that play-caller and the quarterback, they’re in sync. He knows what the quarterback wants.

I think also they will have that to a great extent, maybe not like Kevin would, but it’s going to be close.

Q. A quick thing about Baker, on such a hot streak, now he hasn’t been throwing for 300 yards the last couple games. Do you see anything there?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: The only thing I’d say about Baker, man, his runs had a lot to do with that game the other day. They clinched it, a quarterback sweep, almost fell out of my chair. It was a great call. Got the extra blocker out in front.

Baker was running hard. I mean, he probably ran the ball four or five times, but he was running like a fullback. He was running like he was born in Cleveland and it meant something a little bit extra to him.

I think that he has really become sort of the embodiment of that fighting spirit right now of the Cleveland Browns, that poor fan base that doesn’t get to go to the games right now. I just got to feel like the people in Cleveland are about ready to explode to get back into that stadium and cheer with a packed house the way that they used to do back in the day I can remember so well.

I think, if anything, Baker has even kind of risen here a little bit lately. He’s made some big throws. He’s doing most of it without Odell Beckham Jr. They miss Odell when they get into some of those single-coverage situations. It sort of galvanized the rest of the team, too, forced some people to move forward with that receiving corporation. Probably Donovan Peoples-Jones, the number one person on that list.

They may be a better team going into next year once Odell comes back.

TONY DUNGY: I would say, too, it’s not always numbers. It’s what you have to do to win games. If Baker has to put up big passing numbers, I believe he’ll be able to do that.

His focus is on winning the game. I think he’s played well in spite of the fact that the numbers maybe haven’t been what they were earlier in the year.

Q. Talk about Tom Brady, the sort of relationship, the respect, the humor that you guys maintain.

TONY DUNGY: The whole Indy-New England thing, we had great respect for them. We played a lot of big games against each other. I didn’t know Tom that well when he was playing for New England and I was coaching, but got to know him through some of his ex-teammates, Adam Vinatieri, guys like that, then Rodney Harrison for the last 12 years.

We have a lot of love and respect for each other. He sent my son Jordan a Tom Brady jersey, probably the biggest Tampa Bay fan in the city. Very sweet of Tom to do that.

It’s all in good fun. Tremendous respect for one another.

Q. Cris, you mentioned Joe Bitonio a little bit. How much do you think that affects the battle you’re looking forward to see?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: A lot. I think it impacts it a lot in part because of who they’ve got behind it, between Nick Harris and Chris Hubbard, the guys that were supposed to take his place. Who fits into that guard position now? Especially when you’re going against the likes of (Stephon) Tuitt, (Cameron) Hayward, (Tyson) Alualu, you’re a power running team anyway. The pass protection being such a key component part of it.

We talked about it a little bit on the broadcast the other night. 5/11^ths of the football team are offensive linemen. The strength of your team, which I think the strength of the Cleveland Browns, is their offensive line. When one of those key guys gets taken out of it, that can be a little bit of a tough go for a football team.

They’ve been through it before. Wyatt Teller didn’t play the last time we called the game. They survived that one pretty well, so I presume they’ll survive here, too.

Q. Coach, you mentioned the Browns-Steelers rivalry. You were part of it for a bit. What is your favorite memory from your time playing against the Browns?

TONY DUNGY: Well, I can remember the first time I played them in 1977, going to Cleveland, Jack Lambert told me, whatever you do, once you come out of the dugout, don’t take your helmet off on the field because these fans don’t like us, they’re crazy. As a rookie, I put that in my memory bank, I never took my helmet off.

He got thrown out of the game for taking his helmet off. I remember looking at him and saying, what did you just tell me (laughter)?

It was that type of game. We had some back and forth with those guys. They were always tough games. Healthy respect. But it was pretty strong, no question about it.

Q. For Cris and Tony, obviously from Washington’s perspective, pressure on Tom Brady is going to be key. That seems easier said than done. What is the key for them to do that? On the other side of the ball, what have you seen from Scott Turner this year that suggests he could have success against the Tampa defense?

TONY DUNGY: I’ve been watching them. You’re absolutely right. Jack Del Rio, Ron Rivera, this defense is built around rushing with four guys and covering with seven. They’ve got five tremendous rushers. They’ve got to alternate those guys in the defensive front. They got to pick their spots to blitz and create pressure.

But those four guys have to pressure. That’s their style. If they don’t pressure Tom Brady, it’s going to be a long day. If they are able to, they’ll have some success.

Tampa’s protection has been excellent this year. That to me is going to be the battle and the key to the game.

On the other side, we talked about it earlier, Todd Bowles is going to bring heat, things from a lot of different directions. Scott Turner is going to have to dial up some plays to beat that blitz.

There is pressure on him to do that because that’s what’s going to happen. It will be great to see how it plays out. I think you’re right, for Washington to win, Scott Turner is going to have to have a good game and that defensive front is going to have to have a good game.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: It’s interesting with Scott Turner, he comes from a family and a background that running the football is important. You can sense that. They move their offensive line a lot. They’ll get blockers in front. They have really versatile backs with (J.D.) McKissic and (Antonio) Gibson. They kind of give them the ability to look like they’re running, then throw the ball, or vice versa.

They can use that, but I think the one thing with the blitzing team that maybe people don’t think about so often is that sometimes you can wash down one of those blitzes and pop a run, slow a blitz down, too.

I think with Alex Smith, obviously going through what he’s going through with his leg and the calf, the whole thing, there’s a chance that you’ll see Washington pop a couple good runs in this one and slow that blitz down.

Q. As noted earlier, number one for the 10th straight year, going from number one to number one. My question is, given that number one position, which is not in question, there are still fluctuations, challenges this year, when you look to the long-term, to what extent do you think you can further grow that audience? If so, how do you do that as far as certain demographics or audience groups, parts of the country? How do you think about the long-term audience growth?

PETE BEVACQUA: I’ll hop in and turn it over to Fred for his ideas.

Again, I think it starts with the power of NFL programming and the power of the sport. I mean, there’s a passion for people to watch their NFL teams play great games. The fact that you were able to tune in to NBC primetime on Sundays is just a fantastic experience.

I think what we found over the course of this last nine months, if you go back over the time period, I think back to March where I was at THE PLAYERS Championship, part of our PGA TOUR partnership, over the course of 36 hours, sports came to an absolute standstill when we think about the cancellation of the PGA TOUR events, the National Hockey League, the NBA. I think that time period was a real reminder just about how strong the passion level for sports is in this country, how people miss sports so desperately.

I think as Fred said accurately, this fall and summer with sports coming back, sports being played, at times they’re not normally being played, you think about the U.S. Open in golf that we had, which is historically played on Father’s Day weekend, all of a sudden we were doing it in September. I remember our Thursday night NFL opener, I think it was the first time in the history of sports where you had the NFL, PGA TOUR golf, Major League Baseball, the NHL, the NBA all played on the same day. There was kind of this mass swarm of live sports coming back.

But what’s so powerful in sports again is the passion and how people want to watch sports as they’re happening. They want to watch sports as it’s live. We think the NFL will continue to be a dominant property. We know that the effort that we put into the partnership, granted I’m biased, with the best people in the business like Fred, Al, Cris, Michele, our full team out front and behind the scenes, you couple the power of that team with the power of the property, and we just think it’s an absolute recipe for continued success.

Fred, from your perspective, I don’t know if you have anything to add.

FRED GAUDELLI: I would just say from day one, the magic of Sunday Night Football has been the schedule. I think the first promotional line was the best team, the brightest stars, the best games. For 15 years that’s pretty much what it’s been.

Then when something we thought was going to be great fell apart because of injury or for whatever reason, it was the first time we had flexible schedule go ahead where you could get out of a game that didn’t turn out to be as good as you thought it was going to be back in the spring, get into a more meaningful game.

To me the growth of Sunday Night Football is going to hinge on what it’s hinged on for the previous 15 years: getting the games that people want to see, with the players that people want to see, and the matchups that people want to see.

Q. With everything that’s gone on through this year, do you think Ron Rivera should be in the Coach of the Year situation?

MIKE TIRICO: Absolutely. Just personally with him, what he’s had to deal with and overcome, obviously everything with the team. You’re still looking at a team that’s had four quarterbacks during the year, the breakout stars not as abundant as other teams. Yet his steadiness and leadership…

I got to do the first playoff game. I had a chance to do play-by-play for was Ron Rivera against Bruce Arians. It was on a foggy day in Charlotte against a Carolina team that was 7-9. A lot of these same conversations were had about that team at that point. It speaks to Ron’s steadiness over the years, what he’s been able to do to get this team to the postseason.

It is 7-8-1, the Carolina team, not 7-9.

Absolutely he deserves to be in that conversation for what he’s done this year, not just the personal story, but the team on this field and amidst the tumult in the organization.

Q. Al and Cris, something you said earlier, it could be the dawn of a new era in Cleveland with the Browns. As you look at this franchise, what makes it potentially different this time that they finally had success and sustain it down the line?

AL MICHAELS: You’re always talking about a coach and quarterback combination. When you look at it right now, I know Stefanski has only had one year, but he’s done a heck of a job obviously. Baker Mayfield, after maybe last year, wasn’t a great year for him, but I think Tony summed it up perfectly, maybe the numbers aren’t fantastic, but when you watch him play, you understand it.

When you have a coach and a quarterback situation like that, which appears to be highly promising for the future, great offensive line, Cris talked about that, a great running back in Chubb, another running back in Hunt, Myles Garrett on the other side, all these guys. They’ve got a lot of stars as well. Landry, you put him in that mix. A lot of players who are well-known now not only around the league, but for the viewing public.

I think that’s why when you look at this team, clearly this is a team very much ascending.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: Yeah, one of Al’s favorite subjects, this is a team that’s based on analytics, as well. They spent a ton of money gathering a group of really smart people, I mean, really smart people. I know a bunch of these guys and ladies.

I think they’re all in. They’ve attacked this from every front. They’ve got a great stadium now. The fan base is amazing. Analytics are great to keep Al happy (laughter). Hopefully, I know they’re thinking they’ve got their quarterback and coach now. A lot of things going in the right direction.

TONY DUNGY: I’m going to go away from the analytics, tell you why they’re going to be good. I talked to Kevin Stefanski a few times. He’s changed the attitude and the culture. Nothing to do with analytics. They chart on offense the number of times they knock a defensive player off his feet. They keep track of that. They’re doing it at a very high rate. The leader in that category is Jarvis Landry.

When you get everybody on the team buying into that’s going to be our philosophy, we’re going to be tougher and more physical than the other team, that’s going to go a long way.

When you put those great players, exciting guys together with that mentality that Kevin has taken there, I think that’s why they’re going to be good for a long, long time.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: That’s analytics, though, those cut blocks (laughter).

TONY DUNGY: Very analytical, yes (laughter).

Q. Fred, you guys always have a massive show every week. Are we going to see anything new in terms of production elements, added cameras for this weekend’s games we haven’t seen before?

FRED GAUDELLI: I don’t think so. We’re at Super Bowl levels for every Sunday, practically. We feel really good about our complement of equipment. Just going to go in there and try to cover the game as well as we always do, with the pizazz that is Sunday Night Football.

Q. Some of the stuff that’s been really cool this season that you’re most excited about, putting the 4K camera has been really cool, some of the virtual graphics. Anything that sticks out in your mind that you’ve been super excited about this year?

FRED GAUDELLI: I think that 4K camera has a lot more potential, something that I really plan to spend a lot more time in the off-season working with SkyCam and Sony to figure out how we can get more out of it, stabilize it more while still being able to use it live in a regular type of replay. That was one of the things I’m most excited about for the offseason, getting to work on that.

Then you mentioned the virtual graphics. Again, I think there’s more to gain in that particular area, as well. Definitely will be a focus for the offseason.

Q. Fred, you just mentioned pizazz, Super Bowl level production for the games on Sunday night. Will there be some different elements for what we might see on NBC versus Peacock versus Telemundo?

FRED GAUDELLI: Peacock is taking I believe the entire NBC feed. I’m sure they’ll have some different commercial integration. Maybe Pete can answer that better than I can. The promotional content will be probably very much tailored to Peacock. Telemundo I would probably say the exact same thing for.

All the special elements in this game will be about the two teams in the game, the star players, the history of the teams, their season histories. That’s where all the special elements will get added for this week.

Q. Pete, the different commercial integrations for the various telecasts. Peacock has a lighter ad load than the NBC network for sure. Telemundo reaches a different audience. Speak a little bit about that.

PETE BEVACQUA: I think Fred kind of nailed it. Obviously the game will be the same both on Peacock and Telemundo, in a different language on Telemundo. The game on Peacock will be simulcast. It will be good for us. We’re looking forward to seeing how it comes across on Peacock, obviously also very excited about Telemundo.

In our conversations with the NFL, I think it’s a goal of theirs to reach as broad and as diverse an audience as possible. With our Telemundo station and the audience that it obviously captures, we think it’s a great move for us and a great move for the NFL.

It should be a great, interesting and successful Sunday.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, everybody, for joining us today. We look forward to our two primetime games this weekend.

TIRICO, COLLINSWORTH, DUNGY, EARNHARDT JR., LOWE & OLCZYK PREVIEW NBC SPORTS’ “BIG EVENT WEEKEND”

November 6, 2020 By admin

“Wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t an NFC Championship preview.” – Mike Tirico on Saints-Buccaneers on Sunday Night Football

“Arguably the best player in the league.” – Cris Collinsworth on Saints RB Alvin Kamara

“We obviously wish we could see Trevor Lawrence, but D.J. Uiagalelei will put on a great performance.” – Tony Dungy on Clemson-Notre Dame

“When you have Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp…the two best managers in football right now anywhere on the globe, it is must-watch.” – Rebecca Lowe on Manchester City-Liverpool

“This is a pretty wild racetrack…You won’t want to miss it.” – Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the NASCAR Cup Series Championship

“It should be one heck of a weekend, lots of drama, horses from all over the world.” – Eddie Olczyk on the Breeders’ Cup Classic

STAMFORD, Conn. – Nov. 6, 2020 – Ahead of a huge weekend of high-profile sporting events across NBC Sports platforms this weekend, on-air commentators and analysts, joined by NBC Sports Group Chairman Pete Bevacqua, previewed the action in a special multi-sport media conference call yesterday.

Yesterday’s call consisted of Bevacqua, Mike Tirico, Cris Collinsworth, Tony Dungy, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Rebecca Lowe, and Eddie Olczyk. NBC Sports’ “Big Event Weekend” schedule is as follows:

- Breeders’ Cup Classic, Sat. Nov. 7 at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC
- #1 Clemson at #4 Notre Dame, Sat. Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC
- Manchester City v. Liverpool, Sun. Nov. 8 at 11:30 a.m. ET on Peacock Premium
- NASCAR Cup Series Championship, Sun. Nov. 8 at 3 p.m. ET on NBC
- Tom Brady & Buccaneers Host Drew Brees & Saints, Sun. Nov. 8 at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC

Following are highlights of yesterday’s conference call and click here for a full transcript:

On “Big Event Weekend” across NBC Sports

Bevacqua: “You think about the passion level of sports around the country over the course of this pandemic, how they really have served maybe more than ever as just a great form of escapism to bring some joy into people’s lives around the country and that’s really what motivates us and makes this, what we do each and every day, so uplifting…We’re grateful that live sports are back, maybe more furiously and feverishly than ever. I think it’s been a great moment for NBC Sports and should be a wonderful weekend.”

Tirico: “To have all these champions in sports; Notre Dame, Clemson, Brady and Brees, and the last couple of championships of the Premier League and the championship on the line with NASCAR and a couple of drivers who have won the Cup title, and…the Breeders’ Cup Classic with Bob Baffert and the other horses involved, what a great championship weekend this is.”

On the Breeders’ Cup Classic (Saturday at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC)

Tirico: “The Breeders’ Cup is so great every year, brings the best horses in the world together to wrap up the season…And Keeneland is just a special place to host the Breeders’ Cup.”

Olczyk: “It is all about Bob Baffert…He has three horses that will be, I would say, probably two of the top-3 favorites coming into the Breeders’ Cup Classic. It should be one heck of a weekend, lots of drama, horses from all over the world.”

On No. 1 Clemson at No. 4 Notre Dame (Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC)

Tirico: “Notre Dame’s built up all year for this game. They have even spoken about it the last couple of weeks, which is atypical for coaches, but Brian Kelly’s embraced that, looking ahead and what the players talk about, that elephant in the room, that’s the matchup with No. 1 Clemson.”

Dungy on Clemson QB D.J. Uiagalelei: “We watched him in his first start be 18 points down and bring his team back. Talking to all the Clemson players yesterday and coaches, they said there was no fear, no worry on the sideline. He was the most relaxed guy in the stadium, and he played lights out…We obviously wish we could see Trevor Lawrence, but D.J. Uiagalelei will put on a great performance.”

On Manchester City v. Liverpool (Sunday at 11:30 a.m. ET on Peacock Premium)

Lowe: “When these two get together, when you have Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, arguably, probably not even arguably, the two best managers in football right now anywhere on the globe, it is must-watch.”

Lowe on surprises this Premier League season: “We know it’s a soap opera, we know it’s always been a soap opera and every single week we get served up amazing story lines…The surprises are coming from the way the goals are being scored, who is scoring them and how many are being scored, which has led to such crazy results at times. But we’re all here for it.”

On NASCAR Cup Series Championship (Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on NBC)

Earnhardt Jr. on the final four drivers: “I don’t think anybody in terms of speed or performance throughout the year has a clear edge. I tend to look at the mentality of that driver, his attitude, how he’s handled stressful situations like this, high pressure situations like this in the past, and the guy that stands out to me when you go that route is Joey Logano.”

Earnhardt Jr. on racing in Phoenix: “This is a pretty wild racetrack…If we have late restarts in this race, which I expect we will, it’s going to be pretty dramatic. You won’t want to miss it.”

On the Buccaneers vs. Saints Sunday Night Football match-up (Sunday at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC)

Tirico: “Wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t an NFC Championship preview with the way these two teams are.”

Collinsworth: “This thing now is really starting to take shape around what Tom Brady likes to do, what his feel is for this offense. But you go, you know, on the other side of the ball…what Alvin Kamara has been this season. Arguably the best player in the league. I think he’s the best running back in football right now.”

Dungy on Antonio Brown: “Tom Brady and the Bucs are thinking playoffs, they’re not thinking this week. They would love to win this game and get that one up on New Orleans, but this is for January when you’re playing those big games and it’s tight and you need that one play to win it, is this a guy who can add that one play at the right time?”

Tirico on Brady: “Most scrutinized position in all of sports, greatest champion at that position, did it in one place for so long, still at a high level and going to do it somewhere else. It’s taking Bruce Springsteen away from the E Street Band and moving him to Maroon 5, like all of a sudden Maroon 5 is like, oh, my God, are you serious?… And no disrespect to Maroon 5 fans, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to knock them like that. (Laughing.)”

Collinsworth: “Maroon 5?”

Tirico: “I know. I don’t know why I picked that (laughing.)”

— NBC SPORTS —

TRANSCRIPT – NBC SPORTS BIG EVENT WEEKEND MEDIA CONFERENCE CALL

November 5, 2020 By admin

Thursday, November 5, 2020

Pete Bevacqua

Mike Tirico

Cris Collinsworth

Tony Dungy

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Rebecca Lowe

Eddie Olczyk

THE MODERATOR: Greetings, everyone and welcome to NBC Sports’ big event weekend media conference call. This is a special weekend for NBC Sports with numerous high profile events across both days.

Saturday we have the Breeders’ Cup Classic beginning at 2:30 p.m. Eastern on NBC. Saturday night, No. 1 Clemson at No. 4 Notre Dame. It’s the first time the No. 1 team in the country has been to Notre Dame Stadium in 15 years. Coverage begins at 7 p.m. Eastern on NBC.

On Sunday morning it’s the last two Premier League champions facing off, Manchester City and Liverpool. Coverage is exclusively streaming on Peacock Premium at 11:30 a.m. Eastern.

On Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. Eastern on NBC, the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion will be crowned, one of four drivers.

And the big event weekend concludes with Sunday Night Football, the NFL’s top two all-time passers, Tom Brady and Drew Brees, Buccaneers hosting Saints. It begins with Football Night in America at 7 p.m.

And to talk about this weekend is a truly impressive roster of NBC Sports hosts and analysts. We have Mike Tirico, who handles play-by-play for Notre Dame football and is our host for Football Night in America; Cris Collinsworth, our Sunday Night Football analyst; Tony Dungy, our analyst for both Notre Dame football and Football Night in America; Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR analyst; Rebecca Lowe, host of our Premier League coverage; and Eddie Olczyk, our Pucks and Ponies analyst who this week will be handicapping the Breeders’ Cup.

We’ll also be joined by NBC Sports Group Chairman Pete Bevacqua. A quick reminder that a transcript of this call will be available in a few hours on nbcsportsgrouppressbox.com or you can contact one of us in the NBC Sports Group communications department.

But let’s begin the call now with opening remarks from NBC Sports Group Chairman Pete Bevacqua.

PETE BEVACQUA: Thanks, I appreciate the introduction. I want to also thank everybody for being on the call today. Certainly going through an interesting, unique, and challenging time in our country’s history when you think about the pandemic. Obviously, with our election on Tuesday night and still kind of going into yesterday and today and maybe somewhat of the foreseeable future. We know you’re very busy, but just wanted to thank you for taking the time to be with us.

And thankfully we have sports. You think about the passion level of sports around the country over the course of this pandemic, how they really have served maybe more than ever as just a great form of escapism to bring some joy into people’s lives around the country and that’s really what motivates us and makes this, what we do each and every day, so up lifting. And I’ve been so really remarkably pleased with the effort of our team across the board during these really, really challenging times. When you think about the great work of Sam Flood, Molly Solomon, Fred Gaudelli, Rob Hyland, how we have kept the team united, how we’ve brought live sports back to the viewing public, and I think in such a remarkable way, and doing all of that while never losing site of the fact that we have to keep our people safe. We’re going into these sporting events certainly in a different atmosphere than anyone has ever expected or certainly has ever been trained to. And it’s really been a remarkable few months.

And this weekend is a perfect example. You think about what we have in store for us with the Breeders’ Cup on Saturday, we have this unbelievable matchup on Saturday night, which is obviously near and dear to my heart, with Clemson coming into Notre Dame. And you think back to these historic matchups when the No. 1 team in the country came and visited Notre Dame; you think of Miami in ’88, the great Charlie Ward FSU team in ’93; you think of the Bush Push game of 15 years or so ago when USC came into Notre Dame. And I think this has the ability to be another one of these great iconic Notre Dame football games.

And then we mentioned the Premier League, which has been so unbelievably successful for us, when you think about Manchester City and Liverpool, we’re going to have that on Peacock. And we have been so unbelievably pleased with the success of Peacock. We have seen firsthand the power of sports on Peacock and the impact the Premier League has had on the success of Peacock.

And then last but certainly not least, when you talk about an unbelievable sports weekend, we have this great matchup between Drew Brees and Tom Brady and New Orleans at Tampa in Tampa, which is a home game for Cris Collinsworth. So I know he’s excited about that.

But we’re grateful that live sports are back, maybe more furiously and feverishly than ever. I think it’s been a great moment for NBC Sports and should be a wonderful weekend. And again, wanted to thank all of you for being here with us and wanted to turn it over to a colleague and a dear friend, Mike Tirico. So Mike, take it away.

MIKE TIRICO: Hi, everyone. I’m in South Bend, Indiana. Just got here, getting set for the game. I haven’t been here for a three-day lead up for a game in quite some time.

But in any case, thank you, Pete. Let me pass the ball around to my friends and coworkers who most of whom I get to work with or see on a regular basis, so it’s a nice party-line way to catch up with everyone.

I’ll start with Tony Dungy as we get set for this game on Saturday with Clemson and Notre Dame. Tony, we have had a couple of weeks to get a look at Clemson, and then last week without Trevor Lawrence, who many think is the No. 1 player to be ready for the NFL draft next year, they are very fortunate to have an incredibly talented back up, DJ Uiagalelei, who is a true freshmen in his second start, first on the road. Do you think he can come into South Bend and beat the Irish?

TONY DUNGY: Well, he certainly can. If they don’t, it certainly won’t be his fault. We watched him in his first start be 18 points down and bring his team back. Talking to all the Clemson players yesterday and coaches, they said there was no fear, no worry on the sideline. He was the most relaxed guy in the stadium, and he played lights out. Only nine incomplete passes the whole day and just played great.

So it’s going to be a fantastic game. We obviously wish we could see Trevor Lawrence, but DJ Uiagalelei will put on a great performance. He’ll be ready to go. And he’s got a big challenge with that Notre Dame defense, but it should be very, very exciting.

MIKE TIRICO: Yeah, Notre Dame’s built up all year for this game. They have even spoken about it the last couple of weeks, which is atypical for coaches, but Brian Kelly’s embraced that, looking ahead and what the players talk about, that elephant in the room, that’s the matchup with No. 1 Clemson. And Pete hit it perfectly earlier. This is such a rare treat to have No. 1 at a stadium that’s been around for 91 years and has all the history that Notre Dame has. So we’re looking forward to that Saturday night.

And then Sunday night, it’s going to be a tremendous matchup with the two quarterbacks who have thrown for the most touchdown passes and the most yards in the history of the National Football League, Tom Brady and Drew Brees with Tampa and New Orleans. And Cris, obviously, there’s a lot beyond those guys, and their wide receiving corps are adjusting and getting right, finally, but here we are at the midway point of the season. What do you think of this as a measuring stick of these two teams as they play the second time around?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: New Orleans got after them pretty good the first time. But that team that they played, Tom Brady’s team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is not the Tom Brady team their going to see coming back in. It’s remarkable to see now how many more plays that resemble or directly copy the New England Patriots that are in this offense at this time. I mean, this thing now is really starting to take shape around what Tom Brady likes to do, what his feel is for this offense. But you go, you know, on the other side of the ball, and certainly what Drew Brees has been able to put together with this win streak, what Alvin Kamara has been this season. Arguably the best player in the league. I think he’s the best running back in football right now.

And they have done it all. Emmanuel Sanders has been out. He’s been on the COVID list. Michael Thomas basically has been a non-factor during the course of this season. But you begin to see that both of these teams are starting to get right. Both of these teams are starting to get that offense geared in exactly the way that they want it, and their guys back healthy. Neither of the receiving units have really been close to being a hundred percent. And as we come screaming down the stretch here in the National Football League, these are two teams that are going to be right there sitting at the top and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if one of them ends up in the Super Bowl.

MIKE TIRICO: And wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t an NFC Championship preview with the way these two teams are. And one of them, whoever doesn’t win the division, is going to slide down to a five seed and their road becomes very difficult. So these head-to-heads, especially if it’s a sweep for New Orleans, would be really, really huge to look at. So that’s Sunday night.

Then the other type of football, the Premier League, Pete mentioned earlier how they have continued to go through the difficulties that England has been dealing with COVID-19 as well. Liverpool and Manchester City — and every Sunday when I get to the studio for football night, I always love to pop into Studio 3 and talk five minutes of Premier League with Rebecca and the Robbies or Tim Howard, who has been a great addition to our team this year — and my love of soccer is only heightened when I get a chance to talk about it.

Rebecca, this match with Liverpool and City really brings two teams that had a remarkable 2018-2019 season that Man City won on their great run, and then Liverpool had the extraordinary year last year.

But as we hit their meeting this year, first time in a fixture, it’s a little bit different because Liverpool has still delivered, yet City hasn’t been what we have come accustomed to the last year or so.

REBECCA LOWE: You’re absolutely right. Pep Guardiola doesn’t normally stay at clubs longer than three years and he’s been a lot longer than that at Manchester City and he’s in the final year of his contract and he just feels like a different manager and therefore, when you look at the Premier League table, Manchester City, this great powerhouse of English football are sitting in 10th position going into this game. Now it is at home. It is against Liverpool, who over the years they have developed this huge rivalry just based on success. I mean, if you rewind the clock 10 years or even further, this has never been a rivalry. But this is all purely based on recent modern day success.

Liverpool, as you say, they have kept going. They haven’t had it all their own way. They have lost what most people see as the best defender in world football, Virgil van Dijk, to a knee ligament injury, out for probably the rest of the season. They have some problems in their back line because of that plus other injuries. So they’re having to bring in some youngsters, some young kids who have never played in the Premier League before, which that’s hard enough going into a Bournemouth or a Bryson or a Bermy, but to go into the Champions back line at the age of 19, like somebody like Rhys Williams, who may well play this weekend, is a huge amount to ask.

So Liverpool are not perfect. They do have a new striker up front that they got in the summer Diogo Jota, for around 45 million dollars, who has very much hit the ground running with goal after goal, hat trick after hat trick. He’ll probably play against Manchester City.

And as I say, it is at Manchester City, so although there are no fans, there is still a slight mental home advantage, but it’s only slight. So as difficult as this always is to call, Manchester City at home should still feel like their favorites, but the form and the table, Mike, as you say, tells you otherwise. But when these two get together, when you have Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, arguably, probably not even arguably, the two best managers in football right now anywhere on the globe, it is must-watch television.

MIKE TIRICO: And it feels like the rest of the Premier League is rooting for City to win at home because Liverpool seems always difficult to beat. So if they have a couple of losses on their card in the first eight matches, that would change the feel of the whole season. I am super excited for that on Peacock.

And Sunday, the NASCAR season comes to an end, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is on the line, as you know.

Junior man, when I saw the season play out and it was at Indy, you thought there was no way Kevin Harvick wouldn’t be part of the final four with nine wins, right? But he’s not. The final four is Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano, a couple guys who won the Cup Series title, and then Chase Elliott. His youth, his excitement winning last week, his popularity just like his dad when he drove has a lot of folks thinking Chase Elliott has a chance. What are you looking for as we get down to the Final Four in Phoenix this weekend?

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I think that Chase Elliott’s definitely not — I wouldn’t call him a dark horse — we have just never seen Chase in this situation to win a championship, but yet here he is and he’s coming off of a win at Martinsville. That was kind of a dominant win. So he’s going to have a real good shot at winning his first championship on Sunday and that Elliott name has a ton of history in our sport, so there will be a lot of folks I think pulling for Chase.

But honestly, the four drivers, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, I don’t think anybody in terms of speed or performance throughout the year has a clear edge. I tend to look at the mentality of that driver, his attitude, how he’s handled stressful situations like this, high pressure situations like this in the past, and the guy that stands out to me when you go that route is Joey Logano. He does everything he needs to do to win and he doesn’t apologize for it. And he can get aggressive, physical on the racetrack, and he doesn’t seem to crumble under pressure. I think that I have to kind of put him as the favorite for me, just slightly over Chase Elliott. I know Denny Hamlin has had an amazing season, but his performance in the playoffs has been just a little bit off. He’s not concerned, but it’s hard for me in my position not to be concerned about that. And Brad Keselowski, his whole motto this playoffs is, Why not us? I hear you. I hear you, Brad. But the speed for that team just seems to be a little bit below Joey Logano, his teammate.

But it will be interesting — it’s the first time that we’re going to go to Phoenix to crown our champion. We have traditionally done this at Homestead in Florida. This is a pretty wild racetrack, the restarts, they get four, five, six-wide down in turn one and two on these restarts. If we have late restarts in this race, which I expect we will, it’s going to be pretty dramatic. You won’t want to miss it.

MIKE TIRICO: NASCAR used to be it all comes down to Florida. Now it all comes down to Arizona, and maybe that applies elsewhere this week. Edzo, my man, I know you got some bets to make because you got racing going, two days worth at Keeneland. The Breeders’ Cup is so great every year, brings the best horses in the world together to wrap up the season, and to have it in the space in our country where the horse industry, really all the horses almost get their start in Keeneland, amazing breeding area for horses from that beautiful farm country. And Keeneland is just a special place to host the Breeders’ Cup and it’s headlined on Saturday afternoon by the Classic, Eddie. So I know the whole card is good, but just give us a little focus on what you’re looking for with the variety of horses we have who are pointing to the Classic, which could well decide Horse of the Year this year.

EDDIE OLCZYK: Great to be with everybody and we’re going to miss you here Mike, but we’re going to man the ship down here in Lexington. Yeah, it’s incredible. I mean, our relationship with horse racing, and particularly the Breeders’ Cup, is second to none. We have a lot of personnel on site and just looking forward to incredible racing. 14 Breeders’ Cup races, 31 million dollars on the line. As you mentioned, Mike, all headed to the Breeders’ Cup Classic, 6 million on the line. And a little tie in with Sunday Night Football. The late Tom Benson and his wife Gayle are into horse racing very much. They have Tom’s d’Etat, the No. 4 horse in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. It might be a daily double when it comes to pigskins and horses for the New Orleans Saints and winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic. So keep an eye on Tom’s d’Etat owned by the Benson family. It is all about Bob Baffert, as you know, Mike, with having three horses in this race out of the 10. He has the No. 8 horse, Improbable; the No. 9 horse, Authentic, who won this year’s Kentucky Derby ran on the first Saturday of September; and he also has Maximum Security changed to his barn, who crossed the line first in last year’s Kentucky Derby and was disqualified, and rightfully so, to 17th. He is now in his barn.

So he has three horses that will be, I would say, probably two of the top-3 favorites coming into the Breeders’ Cup Classic. It should be a one heck of a weekend, lots of drama, horses from all over the world. And considering we are living in a worldwide pandemic, to have these horses come in, being quarantined, their handlers being here, I think it speaks volumes to what people think about this great game and this great sport, and just truly proud to be a part of it this weekend. And we got a betting show coming up on NBCSN here in about an hour and a half. We have coverage tomorrow on Future Stars Friday at 2 o’clock. We’ll have five Breeders’ Cup races, and then we’ll be on both networks, NBCSN at noon on Saturday and then switch over to the big network at 2 Eastern and be the appetizer for Clemson and Notre Dame on Saturday night.

MIKE TIRICO: We’ll be in the booth in South Bend early watching. I’m glad you mentioned that too because I think for all of us, and I obviously haven’t been to England and the Premier League, but you’ve seen what happened there, but in all these other sports just the sacrifice, obviously our crew, our team, we are so appreciative of that, but also the athletes, the coaches, the people who run all of these sports in general, to have, as you say, during a worldwide pandemic, all these championship events still going on and to have them all fall on one weekend, I think it’s a great opportunity to step back as a lot of us are doing, from 30,000 feet, and taking stock of what we have and what we are appreciative of in our country and our lives.

To have all these champions in sports; Notre Dame, Clemson, Brady and Brees, and the last couple of championships of the Premier League and the championship on the line with NASCAR and a couple of drivers who have won the Cup title, and as we’ve said, the Breeders’ Cup Classic with Bob Baffert and the other horses involved, what a great championship weekend this is.

Pete, understanding that you have a lot of people at NBC that you would be coordinating this with, but from your understanding, how will NBC navigate having these high profile sporting events with the prospect of significant breaking political news happening during one of these events?

PETE BEVACQUA: We have talked about that pretty consistently kind of in the lead-up to the election, obviously through Tuesday and then thinking about this weekend and what may or may not happen this weekend. I was actually on a big back-and-forth over the course of last night into this morning with Sam Flood and Fred Gaudelli talking about what changes we may need to make during halftime of Sunday Night Football. Obviously major breaking national news is always of critical importance and we will break in accordingly. The good news and the added benefit we have and maybe a bit of what’s advantageous to us compared to some others who are invested in sports as much as we are is we have MSNBC and CNBC and now we have a 24-hour news portal through Peacock that’s available to, as you heard maybe in our earnings call, over 22 million people, so we’re well covered in that regard. We’ll balance it. A lot of it, we have a lot of experience in terms of people handling those decisions, we’ll break away as needed, we’ll try to minimize any interruptions of these great sporting events, but it’s always just a bit of a balancing act and that very well may occur at some point over the course of this weekend. So timely question for sure.

Pete, with sports returning over the past four or five months what has been your impression of the ratings so far? Are they about where you thought they would be for all sports or slightly down due to the pandemic and just trying to get your views on NFL at mid season with how the Sunday Night Football ratings have performed?

PETE BEVACQUA: It’s all relatively speaking. Sports have continued to perform so really unbelievably well and you think about the power of the NFL and Sunday Night Football. And where we have been the No. 1 show in primetime television for nine years in a row and hopefully we’ll hit the decade mark, we have every expectation that we will this year. I think when you think about sports, you go back to the pandemic and I think back to when I was at the Players Championship in March, left there on a Wednesday and by Friday, the entire sports world had come to a grinding halt and we, like everyone else, were scrambling to put up meaningful content and to search our archives to see what could be of interest and we had the great cooperation of the leagues in doing so. But then when live sports came back, really led by NASCAR and the PGA TOUR, we did what we do best, which is bring live sports to the viewing public at a time when people maybe needed live sports as much or more than ever.

But then when everything started to come back, I think there was a bit of a sense where there were some live sports and so many live sports occurring during times when people weren’t used to it. So we saw that very firsthand knowledge and firsthand experience with the U.S. Open. The U.S. Open being contested always on Father’s Day now to move that into September, people weren’t used to having U.S. Open golf in September and now it was going up against college football and the NFL.

You had the NHL playoffs occurring at a time when they usually didn’t. And the NBA and Major League Baseball. And then with the advent of the college football season, which was stop and go and obviously with two of the Power 5 conferences waiting to start play.

So it’s been a difficult time, I think, for the industry to navigate, but certainly for the viewer to navigate, I think it’s been confusing. I think we’re starting to see a return to normalcy. I think the election was kind of a pivotal moment. We have seen the skyrocketing of cable news ratings. Now that the election is nearing an end I think people will go back to kind of normal consumption patterns. So we think we have weathered the storm, of course it’s been difficult at times, but we feel like we’re coming through this in a good place. We really believe with the NFL schedule, particularly with us having the flex schedule, should be unbelievably strong as we enter into the second half of the season. We think the game we have Sunday night that Cris talked about is going to be so powerful. So we feel good about where we are and now where we’re heading into what I believe will be the busiest two years in the history of NBC Sports. When you think about all of our property partners, Tokyo the summer games in 2021, followed so soon thereafter by Beijing in February and, oh by the way, what do we have right in between those is a Super Bowl in L.A.

So it’s an exciting time, ratings have been challenged at times, but the power of sports and the overall sports performance during this time period continues to be relatively strong.

I have a question for Tony and Cris about the game on Sunday night. Obviously it’s going to be the debut for Antonio Brown with Tom Brady. And Tom Brady seems to have put a lot of energy into his relationship with Antonio Brown last year and this year, inviting him to stay with him and really going to the mat for Antonio Brown. I’m just curious, why do you think Tom Brady is investing so much into Antonio Brown?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: I’ll take the first shot at this one. He needs him. There’s no question as you look at this offense, the one missing element, if you think back to all the great New England teams, they always had the Danny Amendola’s, the Julian Edelman’s, that slot receiver who could just get open quickly one-on-one. So you really couldn’t blitz Tom Brady because of those one-on-one assignments in the middle of the field.

Now the Bucs have been trying a little bit of everybody in that slot position. They have had their main receivers — Chris Godwin can do a lot of stuff in there, Mike Evans now has become a little bit of the slot player, which I just wasn’t used to seeing him playing there, and you know what, he’s really good. He’s added almost a tight end kind of element inside there.

But when you get right down to it, if the Bucs are going to win a World Championship, which is what this is all about, right? You don’t bring Tom Brady to town unless you’re thinking Super Bowl. Antonio Brown in that slot, if he is what he used to be, which, who knows, but if he is what he used to be or anything remotely close to it, he could well be that missing piece. He could be the piece that puts them over the top in this offense and honestly, I can’t wait to watch it.

TONY DUNGY: I believe you’re right Cris, I think Tom Brady and the Bucs are thinking playoffs, they’re not thinking this week. They would love to win this game and get that one up on New Orleans, but this is for January when you’re playing those big games and it’s tight and you need that one play to win it, is this a guy who can add that one play at the right time? They’re going to have about eight weeks to get the timing down. We saw Tom and Gronk, we saw Tom and Mike Evans early on in the season kind of misfiring. There will be some misfires with Brown. I thought he was breaking this way, I thought he was going to come out at this angle. But they want that timing to be there in the playoffs.

I know you mentioned Manchester City being in 10th place in your open, but what has surprised you most so far of this season?

REBECCA LOWE: Well, quite a few things. Down to, I think, a lack of fans, it’s really taking the Premier League into a different direction. I think what surprised me most is the affect of no fans on both end of the field. So I have spoken a lot to Tim Howard about this and he assures me that when you’re a defender or a goalkeeper, as he was, the support in the stadium gets on your back and puts you under pressure in a more positive way than if you’re a striker.

So, if you’re a defender, you’re kept on your toes, you’re kept focused by the crowds, so maybe you can see field goals, maybe you’re on your game more.

If you’re a striker and there’s no crowd, if you miss three chances, you’re not getting the crowd on your back. Now you used to have abuse hauled at you if you’re a striker and you missed three in a row. Now you’re not getting that, which means that the confidence level of the strikers are staying high because nobody can bring them down and then they score on the fourth chance, which perhaps beforehand, that never happened. Which is why I think we’re getting so many goals. So I’m kind of surprised at that as a big picture sort of answer to your question, but other than that, I’ve also been surprised at the slow start that so many clubs are making who normally are atop by now. The Manchester City’s, the Manchester United’s, even Arsenal at times, Liverpool themselves they lost 7-2 against Aston Villa. So there are stories in this season’s Premier League — we know it’s a soap opera, we know it’s always been a soap opera and every single week we get served up amazing story lines. This season, with all the added things going on in and around the league, it’s just ratcheted up another notch. And the surprises are coming from the way the goals are being scored, who is scoring them and how many are being scored, which has led to such crazy results at times. But we’re all here for it.

Obviously with the challenge for the pandemic having going from no events, and then events with no fans, now we have some fans. From a production side how hard has it been to integrate the fan back into the show and is it any more difficult now than it was when you guys started the NASCAR up this season, with probably your first events with fans and how — if you want to just kind of take me through how to integrate those shots back in and everything else.

MIKE TIRICO: Before you get going on the NASCAR things, since I’ve been at a bunch of these I’ll jump in on the fan deal, because I’ve seen different parts of it. When I was at Indy for the NASCAR weekend along with IndyCar, there were no fans there. We have done shows from the studio like the Kentucky Derby with no fans. We have done a Saints game with Cris with about 500 people in the Superdome and Tony and have I experienced 10,500 fans at Notre Dame stadium.

So I think each one is different and unique and obviously the fan factor is missing, just from the ambience, from the juice in the building, the excitement. I’ve had more players, more athletes and more sports tell me we have to bring our own energy, we have to bring our own enthusiasm, because the crowd isn’t there. I don’t know if, other than Rebecca’s point about the goals in the Premier League, I don’t know if it’s affecting the performance of the athletes on the field nearly as much, but I do think the environment has impacted going into those games and getting started.

And the last point I’ll make, from a television standpoint, crossing over a bunch of these sports, I think it’s just all unique to the events. When there’s been a crowd at a college football game we have shown them. We have shown the 10,000 at Notre Dame, we have shown the band, the band being there actually added to the ambience, more than any of the other sports, made that missing group of fans seem a bit smaller than it otherwise would be.

I think it’s something we’re going to see for awhile, I think we have all adjusted to it from a production standpoint and I think when the fans do come back, I think you’ll see them celebrated and appreciated even more within parts of the broadcast. So that’s just from the overall perspective, but I know Junior’s been to a bunch of races where there have been fans in the stands at NASCAR and just curious what you’ve seen on that.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Yeah, we have had races where there were none and races where there were a select few fans. I think the drivers absolutely prefer having someone in the grandstands to celebrate what they’re seeing and even if it’s just a very small crowd of people to have some kind of reaction. It is the strangest thing for these drivers — and this has all come from drivers telling us this — they work for three and a half hours to win that race and they get out of the car to nothing. It is the strangest feeling for them to climb out of the car right there on the flag stand or the finish line, to get the checkered flag and wave it to nobody.

So while that was obviously all a necessity and we worked through that, when they did get the opportunity to get fans back on the track, no matter how small the number, just any kind of energy off of that crowd is really, really appreciated by the drivers.

Like Mike said, I think it’s really put into perspective just what the fans bring to the event. NASCAR’s always been very appreciative of the fans, but I don’t think beyond this, we could ever take them for granted because it’s completely obvious to all of us what they bring to the event with energy and passion and I believe it does affect the performance or it does affect the vibe and the energy and how the race is played out. And what the drivers are going to do, the decisions they’re going to make and the risks they’re willing to take.

When you have that crowd and those people, you can see them, coming off the corner, when you take the lead, and fans are on their feet cheering that moment, in that race, when that’s missing, it certainly has to affect the drivers quite a bit.

Tom Brady has been an incredible bright spot as far as TV ratings this year. As Pete said, some TV ratings have been down, but Brady’s Bucs have really performed great in terms of TV numbers. Why do you think that Tom and the Bucs are such a compelling TV story this year?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: I think you know it’s coming to an end, you know. I think, you know, when I watch him play right now, that’s not what pops through my head. Like some people at the end of their career you go, oh, boy, okay, let’s, this may well be the last time I see this guy play.

We had a conversation last night and I, if you just took it off of the tape that I’ve watched in the last three or four weeks here, you would think he legitimately could go to 44, 45, 46 years old. If he chooses to retire at this point, it will not be based on what you see on tape from Tom Brady. And yet in your brain you’re going, here’s a guy that’s won six Super Bowls and he’s in his 40s, is this the last time I’m going to see him play? But I also think there’s that little bit of a thing and we all knew it was going to come — was it Belichick or was it Brady? Right? And you knew it was going to be a part of the discussion. No matter which way this thing went.

And to see Tom Brady go down there, lose opening day against the Saints, and just sort of the slow progression of what this offense is beginning to look like under Tom Brady, it’s starting to look a heck of a lot more like what he was doing in New England and now I think the excitement of what could be — like they asked me to pick top-5 and all that sort of stuff, but it’s not where they are today — but when you see the progression of what this team is doing and what it could be, at the end of the season and throw Antonio Brown into the mix, it’s pretty darn interesting at that point.

MIKE TIRICO: I’ll just make it simple here. Most scrutinized position in all of sports, greatest champion at that position, did it in one place for so long, still at a high level and going to do it somewhere else. It’s taking Bruce Springsteen away from the E Street Band and moving him to Maroon 5, like all of a sudden Maroon 5 is like, oh, my God, are you serious? You know, it’s just that you’re taking greatness and you’re moving it somewhere else and you want to see, is it him, was it where he was, and I want to see if he can go win another one somewhere else.

So the fact that everybody’s familiar with him, the fact that the opponents have kind of lined up pretty well given their schedule this year, everybody wants to go, oh, oh, it’s Brady playing against Rogers, yeah, I want to see that. Oh, it’s Brady going to play against the Raiders, which should have been a Sunday night game, now it’s Brady against the Giants, it’s Brees the second time, every time he plays — and by the way, in a couple weeks there’s a Mahomes game — there’s just something magical about him and you can’t say that about many athletes in any sport, especially the fact that he’s doing it here at the back end of his career, with something to prove, and that pick 199, sixth round chip still on his shoulder. I think that’s why it’s must see TV every time he gets on the field.

And no disrespect to Maroon 5 fans, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to knock them like that. (Laughing.)

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: Maroon 5?

MIKE TIRICO: I know. I don’t know why I picked that (laughing.)

NFL big picture, you look at the race this year — Saints, Bucs, Seahawks, Steelers, Chiefs, Ravens — they have all made a trade or signed a guy to help shore things up. Are you guys noticing maybe more teams kind of trying to keep up with the Jones’ near the trade deadline and make some of these splashy moves that these franchises maybe aren’t all that known for?

TONY DUNGY: Well I personally don’t think it’s keeping up with the Jones’, I think what you’re seeing is there aren’t complete teams. Everybody’s got holes. And everybody’s gone through seven, eight weeks and saying, I really want to make a playoff run, Tampa, I need another big play receiver. I need a pass rusher in Seattle. I need this, I need that. And it’s wide open.

So it’s not like, hey, we’re sitting here and we can’t catch some of these other teams, but I think teams realize what they need and they’re going out to get it to try to make this run. So that’s the one thing I’ve noticed, that every team you look at, no matter how well they’re playing you say, boy, there’s some holes here. They would be great except for this. And I think those teams are trying to fix that coming down the stretch.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: I think you have a couple of things to talk about. One is you have older quarterbacks — Brady, Brees, Roethlisberger won’t appreciate me putting him in that category — but those kind of guys, and you realize that that window’s a little bit short, right? You don’t know how many more swings at the plate you get with that high-quality player at that position.

And then you also have, which we have never really had before, the other side of that spectrum, which are these young players on those rookie contracts lake a Lamar Jackson, where they don’t take up very much cap and you can afford to take a couple of big swings for a defensive player or make a trade or take on some salary that maybe you wouldn’t have been willing to do otherwise.

But I’ll say this, if you’re from Pittsburgh, that was two of the most impressive physical performances back-to-back that I’ve seen from what they did. Watching them in Tennessee, I was like these two teams — Tennessee and Pittsburgh — no way they’re coming back a week later and being able to play to that level. They were trying to kill each other out there.

And it ended up being true of Tennessee, they got beat in Cincinnati. Pittsburgh, on the other hand, went to Baltimore, a game every bit as physical, we know the rivalry, we know the intensity of that thing, and to go in there and pull off that one as well? To me that jumped Pittsburgh to another level in my mind. And I still don’t think that their offense is close to where they’re going to be at the end of this thing, I just don’t.

MIKE TIRICO: And I’ll just chime in quick that I think people are quicker to hit the reset button in the NFL. They’re quicker to cut losses, teams are also trying to add, as you say, once they see they’re in a window where they’re going to have a chance, I think they’re willing to add pieces. It’s almost, it’s not where baseball used to be at the trade deadline, but it’s much more of that mentality than ever. The fascinating part of that is with the salary cap that will go down next year, how is that impacting some of these decisions? And there’s not a lot of tolerance to sit there in the middle ground. If you’re not building around a young quarterback and a new head coach, chances are you’re selling off assets to be in position to draft in the top 10 to get one of those elite quarterbacks or young quarterbacks and start a rebuild quickly. Because we’re seeing Arizona, in a couple of years, has turned themselves into a 5-2 team with a chance to go 6-2 here against Miami this week. So I think that the reset button has come quicker for teams because the chance to get it turned around seems to be quicker than it was five or 10 years ago. So I think that’s part of the willingness on the backend where, I have assets, I don’t think I’m a playoff team, let me sell off this asset to see if I can get to the top of the draft line a little bit sooner.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: And those quarterback assets in college football coming up in this year’s draft are pretty amazing.

MIKE TIRICO: Exactly.

TRANSCRIPT – FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA 2020 SEASON PREVIEW CONFERENCE CALL

September 8, 2020 By admin

Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Mike Tirico

Tony Dungy

Rodney Harrison

Chris Simms

Sam Flood

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our Football Night in America conference call to preview the upcoming NFL season. Joining us today is our Football Night in America host Mike Tirico and analysts Tony Dungy, Rodney Harrison and Chris Simms, as well as our executive producer Sam Flood. In addition to Football Night, you may have heard, Tony will be joining Mike this year in the booth for Notre Dame football for the first time. NBC Sports’ Notre Dame season, 30th season of broadcasting Notre Dame football begins on Saturday, so feel free to ask questions about the Fighting Irish, as well.

Football Night is entering its 15th season and has been the most watched studio show in sports since its inception. NBC Sports kicks off the NFL season on Thursday night with the Super Bowl champion Chiefs hosting the Texans, and then on Sunday night, Week One, we are opening the new SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles as the Rams host the Cowboys. Coverage begins both nights at 7:00 p.m. eastern on NBC.

SAM FLOOD: Thank you all for joining. Excited to have the season going. It’s exciting to see that football is coming back and all the efforts that have been made by the NFL to get this season to happen. It is a new season. There are new systems and new opportunities to tell the stories of what’s going on, and what a great group on the air to do that with Mike, Tony, Rodney, Chris, Mike Florio doing the inside information, and also Liam McHugh and Jac Collinsworth.

A quick overview of how the talent is going to work this week. As you heard last week, Mike Tirico is going to call a few games this year, the first one being Week Three. So on Week Three, Liam McHugh will leave his normal duties as the host at the remote and come into the studio and join Tony, Rodney and Chris, and Jac Collinsworth will be the on-site remote host.

Jac is also going to be doing features and telling stories for us and will be in the studio Week One, but we have a team that can go tell the stories of what’s going on.

Tony comes in to Connecticut tomorrow. Rodney is going to be working from Georgia. He’ll be our Georgia bureau of NBC Sports, while Chris and Tony will be in the studio with Mike, and Mike Florio will be our West Virginia NBC Sports location, so we’ve got some broadening new areas we’re going to be coming out of with our talent as we continue to work on ways to social distance and follow what is most comfortable for everyone as we go into this new world and the new era of broadcasting.

We’re going in different people’s houses and today there’s a group in Rodney’s house setting up a studio camera setup for him which will put him into the show in real time, no different than the great Doc Emrick, who is calling the Stanley Cup Playoffs from his home somewhere outside Detroit, Michigan. We have structures in place to make sure everyone is ready to do their jobs with all the assets needed to be the show of record, and that’s what Football Night in America is.

We start the conversation every week on what happened on Sunday and most importantly why things happened and the implications for the week ahead. With that, I go to our quarterback, Mr. Tirico.

MIKE TIRICO: Thanks, Sam. Hi, everyone. I’ll be brief so you can get to all the guys with your football questions. This is such an exciting time. I’m sitting here right now just putting together the game chart for the Notre Dame game this week and balancing that with going back and forth preparing for the NFL season. I didn’t think that we’d get to a football season, but here we are, with so many questions.

Obviously the off-field stories of COVID-19, social justice, race relations in America have been a significant part of everyone’s lives here this year, and the NFL usually mirrors what’s going on in society, so that will have an impact, and we’ll cover it, but parallel to that, I’m really intrigued to watch the football. We have not seen any of these teams do anything but maybe a little blip out of their scrimmages, so Brady as a Buccaneer, Mike McCarthy as a head coach in new place, Cam Newton with the Patriots, the new stadiums in Vegas and Los Angeles, Kansas City coming back as a resounding popular story as a champion in the NFL, how good Baltimore was last year.

There were so many really good stories on the field that I just feel like we haven’t talked about much, and I think that first Sunday is going to be just an avalanche of story lines and the unexpected.

I’m fascinated to see how the first month of the season plays out. Thrilled to be year three in the studio with the guys, and I can’t believe it’s year five already as part of the NBC NFL team, the best team in the business. It’s a privilege for me. It’s something I don’t take lightly and I’m thrilled to continue working with the guys. Look forward to your questions, and I’ll throw it over to Tony.

TONY DUNGY: Thank you, Mike. I am in total agreement. These story lines are fantastic, and any other year we would have — we would be all over this already. But this is so unique, and I have to think back to 1982 when I was watching, a strike year where you really didn’t know coming to that first game what was going to happen, what teams were going to be like, who was making the adjustments. We’re going to see a lot of that beginning Thursday night and then again Sunday night.

I’m excited for the first month, as well, and just delighted to be broadcasting this and happy that we are back to some football. Should be fun. Looking forward to it. With that, I’ll turn it over to Rodney.

RODNEY HARRISON: Hello, everyone. Along with Tony Dungy, this is our 12th year at NBC doing this show, and this has really been the strangest year that I’ve ever experienced really in football. We talk about so many different story lines. I’m excited because I didn’t think football would actually happen this year. I just said there’s no way with COVID and everyone getting sick and people were dying, there’s no way we’re going to have football, and just the due diligence of the NFL, the players and their discipline has just been tremendous.

Coach and Mike talked about all the different story lines. Kansas City, can they repeat? I was on the last team that repeated in 2003 and 2004, how difficult it is, very difficult to try to repeat. My former teammate Tom Brady, he’s out in Tampa, he left the Patriots, so I’m excited to see what he brings along with Rob Gronkowski.

Look at the Dallas Cowboys who play on Sunday night. I think they have a roster that is a Super Bowl roster. I think their defense, at least a front seven, one of the top five in all of football. We’ll see, we haven’t had a chance to really gauge or see anyone in the preseason, but I’m just really, really excited about this season, and I’ll hand it over to Chris Simms.

CHRIS SIMMS: Man, 12 years, wow. Gosh, Rodney, you are the man. Patriots, Chargers, 12 years on NBC. That’s what I’m working to be right there one day.

I echo the sentiments of what everybody said. There’s so many interesting story lines this year, and I don’t know how the rest of the guys feel, but I’ve never felt so clueless going into a 2020 football season, and I think that’s where it’s really interesting.

Yeah, the story lines are awesome and Big Ben and Cam and Brady and is this the last hurrah for Drew Brees and can Lamar Jackson win a playoff game, does this become the jump-off point for the Kansas City Chiefs’ dynasty? There are so many things I’m excited to see about the start of the football season. What is the quality of play going to look like?

I’ll say this: The one thing that jumps out to me the more and more I get into this and start to feel like I’ve got to start picking playoff teams and make a Super Bowl prediction and all that, I kind of lean towards the proven commodities this year more than ever, with no off-season and just the weird, of course, pandemic and the world we’re in right now, yeah, I tend to lean on teams that were good last year, or at least didn’t have a whole lot of change on their roster. We’ll see if that proves right, but that’s kind of where I’m going as compared to maybe some of these teams that have new coaching staffs, new quarterback in Brady. I’m very interested to see how that works out in Tampa Bay.

But I think those are my overall thoughts going into the year, and I’m just like the rest of the guys, extremely excited that we’re going to be playing football, talking about it, and I’m pumped for that.

I’ve got a question for Rodney, then maybe a quick question for Tony and Chris. For Rodney, I’m curious about the Patriots’ defense. They’ve lost five starters from last year, a lot of young new faces on the defense. What are you expecting from that unit this year?

RODNEY HARRISON: I’m expecting them to really be led by their secondary. That’s the strength of — if you look at (Dont’a) Hightower to me was really the biggest loss because this is a guy that’s making the calls in the huddle, all the different things that he does and what he brings, I think that’s the biggest loss for them.

But they’re going to have to depend and lean on their secondary. They’re going to have to find a way of stopping the run. They have to be able to do a better job of stopping the run, especially when they play against running teams like the Baltimore Ravens.

We don’t know what they’re going to look like on the offensive side of the ball. Cam Newton is a great story, but as I look at the Patriots, they don’t have many weapons. Who are you afraid of? Julian Edelman is doing to do a lot — N’Keal Harry. They drafted him last year. I think there’s a lot of question marks.

For Tony and Chris, with Cam Newton in New England, what are your expectations for what the offense will look like and just overall thoughts on how the Patriots will do with Cam Newton running the show this year?

TONY DUNGY: I’m looking forward to seeing the offense because Bill Belichick does the best job of anybody in football of tailoring his attack and his defense to what his players can do, so he’s going to do some things with Cam that we haven’t seen him do with Tom Brady. He won with a number of different quarterbacks going back to Matt Cassel and (Jimmy) Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett and the offense looked a little different. So he’ll play to Cam’s strengths, and I’m anxious to see what that’s going to be.

CHRIS SIMMS: I’m the same here. I think I lean towards what Coach Dungy said. This is the builder of one of the greatest schemes we’ve ever seen in Bill Belichick, Josh McDaniels, understanding how to change a schemed approach on a weekly basis. You know, again, I’ll say this: Cam Newton, I know it’s been a long time since we’ve seen him play and certainly since we’ve seen him play healthy. But he’s only 10 years into the NFL career. He’s in his early 30s. Before he tore his labrum two seasons ago when they were 6-2 up in Pittsburgh, he was in the conversation only behind Mahomes as a possible MVP candidate, and I really think in a lot of ways the way I look at New England right now, and Rodney brings up the concerns on defense and I understand them and of course the weaponry at receiver is still an unproven commodity there as far as New England is concerned. I just feel like nobody is better at finding diamonds in the rough, and of course also I think just formulating game plans on a weekly basis that give them a chance to win football games, and I really think Cam Newton is going to have a good year, and I think in a lot of ways this team is built for Cam Newton’s style of football than let’s say Tom Brady’s style of football; let’s spread it out and I’ll find the Wes Welkers and Edelmans and do all that. I think you’re going to see more of an aggressive running attack and play action pass attack with Cam Newton at the helm this year.

I’ve got an NFL and then a Notre Dame question. First for Tony and Chris, with the NFL piping in crowd noise, and we don’t know the level and how loud it’ll be yet, just as a coach and quarterback, how much of a concern do you have about other teams and also opponents on film being able to pick up audible and signal calls and possibly having to frequently change out more than usual this season?

TONY DUNGY: I don’t think you have to do it any more than usual. A lot of teams have done that and taken the TV feed and tried to get little tips here and there on what people are doing. Some stadiums that don’t have big crowds or raucous crowds, you can hear everything called anyway. So I don’t think it’ll really change things too much. As a matter of fact, the crowd noise that they pipe in may make it noisier in some places. I don’t think that’ll really be a factor.

CHRIS SIMMS: Yeah, I think a lot of the concerns I would have had if there was no noise at all, and you could actually just hear the communication going on. Whether that’s the quarterback instead of signaling a signal just yelling, hey, slant route or whatever their code word was for a slant route, to where that could become an issue, to where the sound could be so clear there. But I think realistically with — it sounds like it’s going to be around 70 decibels — If I’m a quarterback of a football team, I’m just telling my coach like a normal away game even before the pandemic, let’s just, crowd noise, let’s throw the speakers on, loud music, fake crowd noise, whatever it is, and let’s learn to deal with it, and I think of course guys are going to adjust to this pretty quick. But I don’t think it’s going to pose a lot of problems, either.

RODNEY HARRISON: Let me jump in from a defensive perspective, too, it doesn’t just apply to the offensive players. It also applies to the defenders because back there they’re making all the checks and adjustments, as well, and they’re paranoid whether the offense or quarterback can hear all their checks and adjustments. They’re going to have to make adjustments as far as hand signals, not communicating verbally a lot because the quarterback might try to steal their signals.

TONY DUNGY: Rodney, you’ve played in Indianapolis and our crowd was very quiet when we had the ball. You could hear everything out there. You could hear Peyton talk and we could hear you guys. I don’t think it’s going to be much different.

RODNEY HARRISON: And still couldn’t figure out what the heck you guys were doing.

For Sam and Mike, with Notre Dame this season having an All-ACC schedule, do you think during the pandemic and everything, this is maybe a good test case of whether Notre Dame joins the ACC full-time and how it can work, especially with you guys maybe doing the home games and all of that?

MIKE TIRICO: Just from a football standpoint, and I’m also an alum of an ACC school and still heavily involved at Syracuse, so I at least have a passion for what’s going on in conference and keep up to date with all that.

From a Notre Dame perspective they have played four, five games per year against ACC opponents and that’s a contract that’s in place for the next decade and a half going forward. I have learned in now my fifth year of covering Notre Dame football for NBC, Notre Dame really loves the independence in football because it gives them the opportunity to play Stanford and USC, and if you look at the schedule, those games are played in opposite years, so Notre Dame is always on the West Coast, which helps their national recruiting, which helps their alumni base get to see them in person out there.

In addition, college football tradition, whether it’s Michigan, a series down the line with Ohio State, schools from the SEC, we’ve seen Notre Dame play that national schedule. I think it would have to be a drastic change in philosophy to see Notre Dame want to become part of a conference and away from this independence because they do love the history, they do love the tradition, and it’s one of the very few schools that can pull this off.

I think all of college athletics is going to undergo a significant reexamination, but everyone I’ve spoken to on the Notre Dame side, this is a one-year thing and they really enjoy having the ability to keep that national schedule and their independence.

SAM FLOOD: Mike nailed it, and most importantly, we’re just thrilled that there’s going to be a Notre Dame season for us to cover, and I know Mike and Tony and Jac Collinsworth, who will be out in South Bend this Saturday, are thrilled to be able to cover a college football game. So that’s what we’re focused on, but I think Mike gave very good perspective.

Chris, to my fellow University of Texas alumnus, to what degree do Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson represent the current state of the art for playing quarterback and to what degree is that an apt way to begin the season? And for the defensive minds on the panel, how do you stop them?

CHRIS SIMMS: Well, I mean, they’re the cream of the crop. Come on, you know this. Patrick Mahomes, there’s no doubt he’s the best player in football from my opinion. I would think the other guys would echo those same sentiments, and I think he’s going to be up there towards the top of football here for a long, long time. I’ve never seen anybody come into the NFL and take the league by storm like Patrick Mahomes has.

And honestly, Deshaun Watson is not far behind and kind of been lost in the shuffle because of what Mahomes has done, but Deshaun Watson, extremely talented. Easily both of these guys are top-5 quarterbacks, could maybe be the future as far as a Brady-Manning type rivalry, but the biggest thing to me more than anything in this is the modern-day quarterback. Yeah, they can beat you with great decisions and surgical passing, but they also, hey, everything is covered. Oh, no big deal, I’ll make an unbelievable throw, or oh, everybody is covered and I have a little pressure in the pocket, no big deal, I’ll buy some extra time back here in the pocket and extend the play and then I’ll make something happen or I’ll just scramble and run because I can do that, as well. I’m interested to hear what Coach and Rodney have to say about it because they’re so rare, they’re so talented, they’re so fun to watch, and I am so happy that we are kicking off the season with these two great, great players, and then in a lot of ways, I’ll say this, too, I think this Texans offense will no longer just be about Watson to DeAndre Hopkins, I think it’s going more by committee, which can make them a more dangerous offense, give Watson more options, and I’m excited for that aspect as far as our Thursday night game is concerned.

RODNEY HARRISON: Yeah, it’s a very difficult question how do you stop these guys? I don’t think you go into a game saying, I’m going to stop these guys. I think it’s more about overall philosophy. When I talked to a few defensive coordinators about Patrick Mahomes as well as Deshaun Watson, they all told me the same thing about the patience, being very patient, because it’s frustrating going against those guys. It might be a 3rd down and 15, you see Patrick Mahomes, he might backpedal 10 yards, throw the ball across his body, and all of a sudden Travis Kelce comes up with it and a 1st down. That’s what they do. They demoralize you on those big plays. Yeah, it’s easy to say try to keep Patrick Mahomes in the pocket, but how do you do that?

It’s just very difficult. I think patience is the key, not giving up the big play, and understanding who you’re going against. They have a lot of weapons. They have a lot of speed.

And I agree with Chris; you look at the Houston Texans, they were so predictable in the most critical moments whether it was 3rd down, red zone, goal line, they’re going to DeAndre Hopkins, and now you look at all the guys they have, it’s actually more pressure on the defense to try to defend all these different guys if they’re healthy, Brandin Cooks, Will Fuller, all those guys. It’s very difficult to try to cover those guys compared to saying all our focus should be on DeAndre Hopkins.

I like what the Texans have done. I know a lot of people criticized Bill O’Brien for getting rid of DeAndre Hopkins, but this offense is actually more dangerous without DeAndre Hopkins.

TONY DUNGY: I don’t know if I qualify as the defensive mind, but I do know this: you’d better have pass rush to deal with those guys. If you don’t have great pass rushers that can pressure them, get the ball out of their hands, you’re not going to have a chance. They are athletic. They do more than just stand in the pocket and make great throws. They’re instinctive. They’re both smart guys, and I think they are the future of the NFL.

You look at guys like this and Russell Wilson and Lamar Jackson, the athletic quarterback that can make things happen off script gives defenses so many problems.

RODNEY HARRISON: You think about going against a guy like Drew Brees or Tom Brady, you know they’re excellent quarterbacks, they’re accurate, but really going into a game against those guys, you kind of know what to expect. With these other guys, you have to expect the unexpected, whatever that is. It’s very difficult dealing with these guys because they’re so athletic, you have to worry about them being involved in a run game, which definitely becomes another headache, now the defense and the linebackers and the safety have to figure out how they’re going to stop the quarterback, whereas against Drew Brees and Tom Brady you know you don’t have to worry about scrambling.

I agree with Coach, these young guys, how athletic they are and how smart they are, they just pose so many problems on the defense.

Coach Dungy, the Jaguars and the Indianapolis Colts are facing each other this weekend, and the Jaguars as you know have done a pretty significant overhaul to their roster. They sent a lot of veterans packing. The Jaguars obviously are coming off two miserable years. When you see what the Colts have done with, particularly under GM Chris Ballard who’s overcome losing Andrew Luck, he’s overcome having a coaching change where he had to go back and get a second coach, but he’s made incredible use of his draft picks, particularly in his first two years, has Chris Ballard in a way almost set a little bit of a standard for how to build a franchise, even though last year didn’t finish the way he wanted and now he’s coming back with a veteran quarterback? Has Chris Ballard set a standard for GMs in the league?

TONY DUNGY: Well, I think what you have to have to make that happen, you have to have ownership, the GM and the head coach being on the same page. I think it’s a great program and a great fundamental philosophy that they have, and they are building for the future. Nobody there in Indianapolis is going to panic because they didn’t make the playoffs last year. It is building for the future, and playing young guys and developing them, so you have to have a coach that is willing to do that. You have to have an owner that is willing to do that. It’s easy to say that’s going to be the plan until you lose a few games.

But I love what they’ve done, and I think they have set a great foundation and shown people that you can build for the future, win a few games on the way and be okay.

Coach Dungy, I’m not sure if you’ve seen this, but Jerry Jones has now said he will allow his players to potentially kneel or protest during the National Anthem or take similar sort of socially aware measures. The fact that the NFL and the teams like the Cowboys are on board with that, do you think, Coach, there will be an adverse effect on fans and that perhaps maybe we will see a downturn in interest, or do you think that is more overblown and the league is doing the right thing accordingly?

TONY DUNGY: Well, I think you’re going to see it go both ways. You’re going to see some people who say if these players kneel, I’m not going to watch anymore because I just feel very strongly that they shouldn’t. And then you’re going to see people like my young kids who say, oh, I think that’s great and that they have a voice and they’re speaking up for people in their community that don’t have a voice, and I’m going to be more apt to watch. Which way it’s going to go and who’s going to attract more or lose more, I’m not really sure, but I think just like everything in this country, you’re going to see both sides of that.

My hope is that our players won’t be just kneeling and not just protesting, but what are we going to do to come up with solutions and how are we going to move forward, and that’s what I want to see, and that’s what I hope Jerry Jones and the Cowboys and everybody else, I think it takes center stage with solutions as opposed to raising awareness with protesting.

Following up on that last question a little bit, Mike, in your opening you sort of mentioned social justice and sort of these converging story lines this season. How will that be covered? You guys have the special tomorrow night; how much will we hear some of those efforts talked about, and how much a part of that from what you’re doing will we see?

MIKE TIRICO: On Thursday night and Sunday and Football Night in America on a weekly basis, this is not the first time these issues have happened, right, so we have covered them in the past before I was here, and now that I’ve been a part of the show, and it’s one of those situations where we’re very lucky to have Chris and Rodney not too far removed from being in the locker room context throughout the league, and Tony, who so many people in football and in America seek out on a regular basis for wisdom, advice, context and perspective, and we have it right on our set and in our viewing room and we watch games.

It’s so comforting to have as relevant and intelligent a voice as there is in sports on these issues as Tony, who’s lived through this now for the better part of six decades, this has been part of Tony’s life. He can add some common sense without screaming at you. It’s a great, great benefit for us.

We’ll cover it as it’s relevant to the games. The story on Sundays are pretty simple. We get you ready for the game coming up but also try to give you everything that happened of significance in the other NFL games. So if there is a form of protest, something significant that happens, we’ll discuss it, document it. If we need to put it in perspective, so be it, but then we’ll show you the highlights of the game.

We have brilliant viewers. These are complex situations. We can do both. And I think we have in the past. I’m really confident that we’ll be able to do it.

Thursday night’s pregame show we’ll certainly have a little bit more of it because it’s the start of an NFL season coming off an off-season like we’ve never had before. Then once we get to Sunday, obviously the league-wide displays that happen, we’ll document. But we’re also going to show you Brady and what happened with the Bucs and his first game and Cam and the Patriots and all that stuff.

It’ll be the typical blend, and I think as the season goes on, as you have more of a focus probably on the games, we’ll adjust accordingly.

Tony and Chris, you both alluded to sort of the uncertainty of what we’re going to see, especially early in the season. We’ve come to expect some pretty sloppy football in September in the past years, and that was with four preseason games and extended preseason training camps. Do you think that the level of play is going to balance the field a little bit for some of these teams that maybe on paper wouldn’t be able to compete against some of the top-tier teams, and will it allow for more upsets, especially early in the season?

TONY DUNGY: I kind of think it’ll be just the opposite. If I were looking to handicap this, I would say jump on the veteran quarterback and the veteran coach who have been together. I think they’re going to have the advantage in September and early in the season. You look at Kansas City and the Texans, for instance. I think we’ve got a chance to have some real explosive stuff and some good plays because you’ve got quarterbacks, you’ve got veteran players who have been in the system, you’ve got the same coaching staff. I think those are the teams that are going to have the advantage, and they’re going to be tough to beat early.

CHRIS SIMMS: I’m with Coach there all the way, too. That’s why I kind of made that comment to start as far as proven commodities, that’s exactly what I was talking about. Teams that had a lot of change in the off-season, new coaching staffs, accumulated a lot of players, man — I’m interested. I really am. I don’t know where that goes. There’s a lot that goes into being battle tested as a football team, playing as a team, camaraderie in the locker room. I think sometimes we under value that stuff a little bit and just go, hey, look at the names on the paper, they should be awesome. Well, yeah, the names on the paper Cleveland Browns probably should have been 11-5 last year, but the reality is it was their first time together and there was a lot of dysfunction in reality that way.

I’m with Coach there, and I expect teams like the 49ers and the Saints and the Chiefs and the Ravens and even the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks to get off to a good start, because yes, it’s pretty much very close to the team they ended with last year. They know what to expect with each other. They’re not learning a new playbook. And then yes, the quarterback thing is very real, to which Coach alluded.

I would think the offenses for the most part, if you have a good quarterback and a good passing game are going to have a severe advantage over the defenses early on just because live action, oh, wait, they went to this formation, wait, we don’t have our check-in yet because it’s too early in the year and we haven’t had enough reps for it and I think defenses will be a little bit behind, like we saw in the 2011 season with no CBA where they had those three 5,000-yard passers. The passers and catchers did not have issues hitting the ground running when the season started, and I think we’re going to see that again here this year.

Mike, I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to watch some of the college games that have been played already with no fans, one last night. What do you anticipate it being like to call football games without a crowd? Your voice tends to rise when there’s an audience around you, but have you given any thought to how you might handle Notre Dame games and then NFL games with no fans in the stands?

MIKE TIRICO: Sure, I think with the Notre Dame games, since that’s immediately ahead of us on Saturday, it’s going to be reading the room a little bit. Notre Dame will have students in attendance, faculty and staff and parents of players from both teams, with a cap of 20 percent or about 15,000, so there will be some atmosphere there. So I think it’s not that situation like the Navy game last night. I was watching Reese and Kirk call that game and there was no atmosphere there for them to work with.

I’m going to lean back on something that I stumbled on after 9/11 and the first weekend back doing football. I did a game at Michigan and I had no idea going in how to react, be upbeat, be positive or continue the somber tone that was in the country, and on that day, I felt as though — I remember walking into the stadium just thinking, I’ll react the way the people react. If there’s crowd noise and there’s enthusiasm and you can hear that coming through the TV, I’ll match that. If there’s not, you’re a little more subdued, I’m going to try to use that as a guide or a barometer for how we do it.

I think my biggest concern or I guess unknown is a better word is the logistics of calling the game, being socially distant in the booth in terms of spotters, statisticians, things like that. We’ve worked a lot to have a game plan in hand to have all the services and the ancillary things that are essential to getting a good broadcast on the air replicated.

For me that’s more of a trepidation going in than what’s it going to sound like with no fans because we will have some in South Bend on Saturday.

Mike and Rodney said earlier in the call that they didn’t think there was going to be any NFL games this season. How concerned, how worried are you whether or not the NFL can pull this off safely? After all, they’re the only major league that’s going to have fans in the stands. The others are all completely empty.

RODNEY HARRISON: Any time you’re allowing thousands of people with a chance to gather together, there’s a chance of the virus spreading, so I’m not an expert at anything like this. The NFL through training camp they’ve done a wonderful job of trying to social distance the players, keep them safe, test them and do all those different protocols. I have no idea. Am I concerned once the season starts, will they be able to finish? Of course, what happens if the entire Patriots secondary gets wiped out, will the game get canceled, will it get delayed? You just don’t know what’s going to happen. But I am happy for at least the start of the NFL season. Not sure if they’re going to be able to finish.

MIKE TIRICO: Yeah, and just on my end, from a fan perspective, that’s local and regional governments making those decisions and those calls based on their expertise. Far be it for any of us to question what their purview is on these situations, and the situation is different in every part of the country. That’s why some teams will have home fans and some teams won’t for the early start of that. That’s out of our league.

My focus has been what’s happening on the football part of that, and from the football perspective after lengthy conversations with the NFL and seeing what they’ve done procedurally and also significantly and I don’t think it’s gotten enough attention, conversations with the Premier League, the Bundesliga, other leagues where competition has gone on where there’s physical close proximity of the athletes, they have found a comfort zone between the players and the league that they can get the players to the field safely and have a good knowledge as best we can at this point of what their status is regarding COVID-19.

I think the NFL has the longest runway of the major sports in the U.S. to try and figure out a plan, and from what they have shared to this point, I see why they’ve arrived at the decision that they will be able in their mind to get started safely. None of us can sit here and say we know what’s going to happen because none of us thought we’d be in this conversation six months ago. That speculation would just be absurd.

But I think in general they’ve done what they needed to to get the season started, and I applaud them for getting that done.

SAM FLOOD: The league also has protocols in place that creates a DMZ between whatever fans are in these very few stadiums that’ll have very few fans in them. There’s a protocol in place where the fans will be far away from the players, so the mixing of people isn’t going to take place. So it’s very well-thought-through in the rare instances where there will be spectators.

Mike, I know that you’ve only done, I think, just the one game of play-by-play with the Ravens back in 2018 up there in L.A., but I’m sure you watched Lamar play at Louisville and again last year when he became just this superstar MVP. From the perspective of a broadcaster or play-by-play guy, what is it like to just cover someone who plays the position and a position so important, so radically different from other guys at his position, even some of the best guys at that position?

MIKE TIRICO: Chris hit on it earlier. Both he and Patrick Mahomes, they bring a different energy to the quarterback position and just technically from doing play-by-play, you’re much more prepared for a runner, a play to be extended, and it takes you back to Michael Vick and Cam Newton and Russell Wilson and the plays that they’ve made over the years that are those highlight plays, and you know that can happen on every snap. I love watching Lamar play.

It has come at a time when I think NFL football, as these players have come in, has taken more of a semblance of college football in terms of Xs and Os, and Chris and I covering college and pro the last couple years have that conversation; there’s more Saturday football on Sunday afternoon and Sunday night and Monday night than there ever has been, and that’s because these players have a “wow” factor. That’s why we’re seeing Deshaun Watson and Lamar and Patrick come into the league and do these things, and from not just a play-by-play announcer’s perspective but as a football fan, it’s awesome. It’s great. You never know when the next snap might be that play of the year that you’ll be seeing over and over and over, and that keeps you on the edge of your seat, and there’s nothing like entertainment where the unknown spectacular can happen 15 seconds from now.

For Rodney, you all talked about the new quarterbacks, what about the old guys and their abilities to traditionally get it done, and any thoughts on the top receivers?

RODNEY HARRISON: Well, I look at the older quarterbacks and I’ve been around Brady. I know how competitive he is. Drew Brees used to be a teammate of mine out in San Diego. These guys are competitive. They see these new hot young guys come through and they’re getting a lot of attention. These guys have been some of the best quarterbacks in the history of the NFL. They have a lot of pride. So these guys are stepping their game up. You see the way Tom, the energy that he brings, Drew Brees we got a chance to cover him the last two years on Thanksgiving, and just his tremendous work ethic, spend time with him, and just everything that they bring.

So these guys, they pay attention to the young quarterbacks, and they’re like, hey, don’t forget about us, we’re a little older and maybe we can’t run and scramble and do the things that you can do, but we can still get it done.

But as far as the wide receiver debate, I think Julio Jones is the best wide receiver in the National Football League, then you have to go between DeAndre Hopkins and Michael Thomas, but I think those guys are the cream of the crop, just how consistent they’ve been and what they bring every single week.

Rodney, are you guys surprised at how the Cam Newton situation ended in Charlotte, and what do you think about the future of the Panthers post-Cam? Could they use McCaffrey too much, and are Charlotte fans in for a number of 2-14 seasons moving forward?

RODNEY HARRISON: I went through a very similar situation where you’ve been at a place for nine years, and when they have new ownership, they have new coaches, they have whatever it might be, you’re going to get a new philosophy. You’re going to get people in there that say, hey, we don’t want a guy like Cam Newton, we want a change, we want to go in a different direction, and that’s exactly what happened. I wish it would have been a little bit more conversation with Cam. I wish they would have maybe communicated just a little bit better with Cam, but Cam is in a really good situation.

I said this months ago, I said the Patriots are crazy. I was very disappointed in them not pursuing Cam because here you get a guy who’s extremely motivated, a guy that’s hungry, you don’t become MVP of this league and get to the Super Bowl because you’re lazy, because you can’t play. He can play. He’s really good. Yes, he’s very immature at times in media, but I think it’s all for this purpose. He’s getting an opportunity with the best coach in the National Football League, best situation for him, and he has a lot to prove.

It’s not just one of those things Belichick comes out and says he’s working hard, he’s the captain. He has to produce, and he gets his opportunity this Sunday. I’m looking forward to Cam. I think he’s going to have success. Like I said before, I think my only concern is they haven’t put greatness around him. Julian Edelman is fine, but who else? Who else in the wide receiving corps can they count on?

Rodney, I’m just wondering, with this craziness of the off-season and limited off-season, do you think the Patriots and Coach Belichick have an advantage over some teams where they have an established program in place for so long?

RODNEY HARRISON: The system is the system. It’s been there. It’s going to be there. When you have a coach like Tony Dungy, when you have a Bill Belichick, you have stability but still understand they have a lot of new faces and a level of talent, the Kyle Van Noys and Dante Hightowers, those guys are gone. More so than athleticism and physicality, those guys brought leadership, and that’s the challenge when you have young players. Can you find young players that are willing to sacrifice and step up at a young age and become leaders? And that’s what needs to happen. They need more of those young guys. Kyle Dugger, the young safety, he’s going to be expected to come in and play right away and play multiple positions. And that’s his challenge. I had a conversation with him. I asked him how’s camp going, he said, it’s a lot of different things going on, and I said, hey, you’ve got to continue to stay in your playbook, it’s all part of the program.

But yeah, I think they’re going to be challenged a lot in that situation.

The Ravens obviously had a great year last year, but they’re looking to take the final step to the Super Bowl. If you put yourself in John Harbaugh’s shoes, what are you thinking about and what are you telling the team as you try to take that final step?

CHRIS SIMMS: I look at the Baltimore Ravens like this: This is the most talented roster in all of football. There’s really not a weakness to the football team itself when you look at it. I don’t look at any one area and go, oh, my gosh. Oh, they don’t get that better, then they’re not going to be a good football team. There’s nothing like that. They’re unbelievably constructed that way. Lamar Jackson is extremely talented. They’re running an offense that the NFL has never seen before.

So that’s all cool to watch. One of the themes of this year, especially as we get to December, I think is going to be, especially if Baltimore is up there in the rankings, is going to be, oh, Lamar Jackson, can he win a playoff game, he’s 0-2 and all that. We all know more goes into that than just one guy, certainly. I think you can point the finger at a few places.

Hey, two years ago they lose a playoff game, they’re a young football team. They’ve got a rookie quarterback. He didn’t play his best. And the Chargers got to see that offense for a second time around and were ready to go.

This past year, I think between Harbaugh taking his foot off the gas pedal at the end of the year where basically the Ravens didn’t play a meaningful game for three weeks, that hurt them. I think they panicked once they got down to the Tennessee Titans a little bit, and then also I think it showed if there is any flaw to Lamar Jackson’s game, it showed, and that’s kind of what we saw in that other playoff game, where hey, if our game plan designing and our physicality can’t dominate with the run game, okay. If we can’t do that, can Lamar continue to progress, which was an unbelievable jump from year one to year two, and I expect another big jump to year three to where, okay, we’re not dominating the run game, can we trust Lamar to drop back and throw the ball 38 times and make good decisions and be efficient and move the ball that way. To me that’s the last piece of the puzzle.

RODNEY HARRISON: To me that’s the most important point right there because we know they can run the football, we know that he can run the football. But in case that run isn’t working, that’s the question right there. That’s the million-dollar question; can he put a team on his back, throw the ball 30 plus times and have success and win football games.

I think the second part about that is not only can he throw the ball, can he throw the ball down the field and have more completions and have more success. I think that’s a big part of if you’re talking about taking the next step as far as Lamar, being able to throw the ball to the wide receivers and not just focus on the tight ends or the backs out of the backfield. Throwing the ball, spreading it around and throwing it outside the numbers, making sure that he can — those sideline catches, giving the wide receiver the opportunity to catch the ball on the sideline down the field.

TRANSCRIPT – 2020 NASCAR PLAYOFFS MEDIA CONFERENCE CALL

September 3, 2020 By admin

Thursday, September 3, 2020

Kyle Petty

Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

Jeff Burton

Steve Letarte

THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, and good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for making the time this afternoon. Today we’re going to be joined on the call by NBC Sports NASCAR commentators Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Kyle Petty, and Steve Letarte.

We’re all ready to get the 2020 NASCAR playoffs underway from Darlington this Sunday at 6:00 P.M. Eastern on NBCSN coming off of what was an absolutely thrilling race from start to finish last weekend at Daytona on NBC.

As we begin the playoffs, we’re about halfway through the NBC Sports portion of the 2020 NASCAR season, and it’s been a strong start to the season with nine regular season weekend races on NBC and NBCSN. Viewership for the regular season races was up two percent compared to last year.

So, a testament to the great racing that we’ve seen at the track like we saw at Daytona last weekend.

We’ll start with Kyle Petty. Kyle?

KYLE PETTY: Man, I haven’t been on pole position in a thousand years.

You know, I think – I’m really excited about this. I talked with Dale Jarrett and Jeff Burton and Nate Ryan yesterday. Went through some media availability with the drivers, but today Dale Jarrett and I went through Brad K (Keselowski) and Kevin Harvick and Truex (Martin Truex Jr.) and Denny (Hamlin), and I don’t believe that I have seen the level of confidence in these drivers that I’m seeing right now, which totally surprises me when we look at no practice, no qualifying, just get it done.

Every one of them believes they can get it done. I think that is huge. I don’t think we talked to a single driver who didn’t feel like they could attack this first round and that there was a race in this first round that they could come out on top.

And a lot of times – you guys, everybody in the media knows it. You hear those stories and you kind of take it with a grain of salt in February when the season is beginning to start, but every one of them gave valid reasons why they could win, why they could win a race, why they could make it to Phoenix, why they could be the guy. And with the unpredictability of no practice and no qualifying, they’re all valid reasons.

For me, I think we can break races down and we can break rounds down all we want to, but I think this is going to be a battle of wills, who has that grit, who has that determination, and who just puts the car on their back and carries it and gets it done. Every one of them believes that even though Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin have done it in the regular season, that they can do it in the playoffs.

In my mind and in my heart right now, I believe this is going to be a special, special playoff season.

THE MODERATOR: Junior, you’re up next.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Well to me, this one kind of mirrors many of the last several years where we have a regular season; we have a couple guys that stand out. Sometimes it’s three guys; sometimes it’s one guy.

This year it’s been two guys, and everybody else in the field pretty much – you basically kind of know who they are and what they’re capable of. You know, there’s been sometimes when we would come out of Homestead and maybe the guy that we didn’t expect to win the championship didn’t win it.

Joey Logano won one year. So, when you get down to the four, anything can happen, and we know that. But can somebody do something that they – can somebody change their identity? Can somebody become something they haven’t been this year?

Clint Bowyer is talking about (William) Byron being a dark horse, you know, coming off the momentum he’s had just over the last couple races. Whether that’s real or not, I don’t know. But can somebody turn it on and just blow us away? Or are we going to really get what we expect?

I think what most of us expect is for Denny (Hamlin) and (Kevin) Harvick to be two of the four and have the best odds in that final event. I guess that’s where I’m at with it. It should be kind of fun. All the rounds are pretty fun because the guys that are sort of the underdogs, and maybe a lot of people don’t think they have what it takes to win a championship, we get to see them kind of get scrappy here for a couple rounds and try to get a little further into the playoffs than a lot of people want to give them credit for.

I find it really intriguing watching that first round play itself out and see who gets cut. They’re all sort of panicking not to be cut early. And I’ve been in that position before, and it’s pretty stressful to put all that work in to get there and then go out in the first round. It’s really, really disappointing. It’s almost as disappointing as not making it at all.

That’s really kind of a couple thoughts from me.

THE MODERATOR: Jeff Burton, you’re up next.

JEFF BURTON: Yeah, so what I’m really looking forward to is everybody knows that (Kevin) Harvick and (Denny) Hamlin are the favorites, but when you get past them, who’s the third-best? I don’t think – there’s not a whole lot that shows me that there’s a lot of difference between the third, fourth, fifth-best and the 15th best. I think there’s a real dogfight in there.

So, it’s 14 underdogs, and I think every one of those 14 believes they can beat – they’re not so sure they can beat Harvick and they’re not so sure they can beat Hamlin, but they believe they can beat all the other ones. It’s going to be fascinating to watch them navigate through the playoffs and watch them try to get to Phoenix, because like (Dale Earnhardt) Junior said, you get there anything can happen.

To what Kyle (Petty) said, all the people we talk to, they believe – they mention Harvick and Hamlin, but they always feel like they can beat the other ones. I think it’s going to be an incredible race to be one of those other ones.

The other thing that to me is going to be wild about these playoffs is the schedule. You look at the cutoff races – imagine being at Martinsville, the last race before Phoenix, and you get a late-race restart. I mean, good Lord. The chaos that can ensue from that could be phenomenal. It’s going to put drivers in – it’s going to make them question their integrity; let’s just say that.

Every playoff, what I’m always excited about is to see who can have that step-up moment, like who can get themselves to a point they haven’t been before. Junior just mentioned William Byron. Well, look at what William Byron has done — look what he just did. They were horrible at Dover in the first race, and then stepped up and had a really good solid second race and then won on Saturday. Those are step-up moments. Those are big-time step-up moments.

I want to see if he can keep that up because he put himself and took himself a place he hasn’t been before at this level, and I think that’s a huge, huge confidence builder for him and his team.

STEVE LETARTE: My coworkers talked a lot about the people within the playoffs and I think there’s a ton of great storylines. The one thing I think I’m most proud about is that in a season of change, NASCAR has somehow found a way to get the playoffs to run as scheduled.

I think that shouldn’t be overstated. In all these other sporting groups, whether it’s basketball, baseball, they’ve had to make concessions and doing a nice job to get their playoffs in.

We have NASCAR, who after we left the double-header at Dover, it was back to what I consider regular scheduling programming, right? It’s Daytona for the cut race and into the playoffs.

The second thing I’ll add is I was never a fan of 16 drivers in the playoffs just because I never felt that the pressure of the cut race would be what I felt was Daytona, I’ve been converted. It went from 10 to 12 and now 12 to 16, and they’ve sold me on 16. Because when Jimmie Johnson, an 83-time winner, is eliminated, and Erik Jones, an up-and-coming talent with race wins is eliminated and we have other names leading races, Tyler Reddick with a big slide job that perhaps didn’t work, but he was in the conversation.

That proves that I think the format of 16 drivers to end the regular season at Daytona was spectacular. I felt the pressure at Daytona. I felt the electric atmosphere of trying to make the playoffs. So, I thought that was a huge momentum builder, not just for William Byron but for NASCAR. I feel like that’s the type of lead-in that the playoffs deserve, and then as Jeff mentioned the schedule. What more do you want, right? When you say the standard track of the first round is Darlington, which is anything but standard, and the Southern 500, and then we’re going to go short track racing for a couple weeks, and perhaps that’s the most predictable round.

If Bristol was anything of a predictable round, then the other rounds are just going to be crazy. The middle round gives everybody heartburn, as it should, and then at that point, I think you’ve brought it down to eight. That’s what makes the final round so tough is that it’s the best eight and they’ve found their way there.

So, I just think the storylines are so deep. I will tell you as a broadcaster, I’ve never had a race I looked forward to more or perhaps more exhausted in preparation than the Southern 500, Throwback Week, and the start of the playoffs.

The amount of storylines for this weekend could fill a novel, so I’m excited to get on air and start covering them.

My question concerns Kyle Busch. I think that’s one of the more interesting stories here in the next 10 weeks. They haven’t been bad. They’ve had the chance to win races, to run up front. There have been some mistakes, there’s been some misfortune, but when you kind of bury yourself, you don’t have the playoff points, you’re below the cut line to start the playoffs, can you recover from that? I mean, even if you have the speed you’ve got to be excellent. You all have great perspective, but how can you overcome that when you’re so deep already because of the lack of playoff points and no wins?

JEFF BURTON: At the end of the day, going before the points were awarded based on where you finished in the regular season, I believe they had one playoff point. That is so unlike that team. So, I think that they’re entering these playoffs without points that they’re accustomed to having because of their performance, and that’s the biggest concern.

I will say I think that Kyle Busch may have done his best job driving ever last year winning that championship. If you go back and you look, these issues started last year. They were not running well. We were talking about them not running well through the summer and the fall of last year, and they found a way to win the championship.

So really that’s continued. So, my concern for them is that I don’t see the speed, and I haven’t seen the speed for a while.

My optimism for them is that it’s damn Kyle Busch and it’s Adam Stevens, and they found a way to win last year when most people, including many of us, didn’t think they could. But they’re going to have to find some speed. They’re going to have to find some speed if they’re going to win the championship. I’m not saying advance through the first round, but if they’re going to contend for the championship, they are going to have to make improvements in speed from where they are right now.

STEVE LETARTE: The way I look at it in sports, Hall of Famers are cliché, but Hall of Famers are made in the post-season. We talk about moments, and normally when we talk about moments it’s a race, an inning in baseball, last play in a basketball game. I think this is a big moment for Kyle Busch. I think he is a champion. He’s proven he can win a championship. He’s proven he can win races. We have seen him fight back from adversity in a race, in a stage, in a restart.

I think while no one wants to be there, he has the chance to make a pretty historic run. If he can make a run from his current seeding position to a seat at Phoenix for the chance to win the championship, that would be a pretty historic run. Even being Kyle Busch, if you look at his regular season numbers that would be a huge shift.

If I’m Adam Stevens, that’s the story I’m selling. That’s what I’m doing. I’m motivating my team, basically reminding them that we’ve been where the other two are with all the points and not won it, and we know they can be beat.

So very simply, we have seen it go the other way. We have seen those, quote, surprises. That’s a poor label for big stars, but surprise champions, and why can’t that be us. I think if Jeff (Burton) is correct and they do find that speed that allows them to keep up, it could be a heck of a storyline to follow.

KYLE PETTY: I’ll say this: I’m just going to – at this same point I’m going to mention one guy’s name, Tony Stewart, who went on a tear in those 10 races. Kyle Busch is that kind of driver who can go on a tear, and this is a sport of streaks. This is a sport where a driver can get hot and just burn it down. Burn it down.

Kyle Busch is that kind of driver. They haven’t had speed, as Jeff (Burton) said. They have not had speed. The upside is that the 19 of Truex and the 11 of Denny Hamlin, their teammates, have had speed. So there’s speed somewhere to be found. It’s not like they’ve got to go hunting too far. They’ve just got to go hunting in that building for it.

Counting Kyle Busch out or counting them down and out is like counting Jimmie Johnson out ever. It’s like counting a lot of great drivers — you can never count them out.

My dad used to have this saying when you get somebody down, keep your foot on their neck because if you let them up, they’re going to bite you. And if they let Kyle Busch up, if he wins one of these first couple of races in this first leg or at least turns things in the right direction, then it’s got to scare a lot of people, I think.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I was just going to say I think if you polled all the drivers in the playoff field who they would like to see get knocked out of the first round or who they would like to see not make it to the Final Four, who do they not want to go up against, Kyle (Busch) is going to be on their list, no matter how he’s running.

Steve, you touched on it when you opened things, but it seems like it’s only four months ago that we were at Darlington, but it seems like 100 years ago. How big of a watershed moment was that for NASCAR to be at Darlington, get restarted, for us to even be here talking about the playoffs and racing at this point?

STEVE LETARTE: You said it, I think it was a huge moment for the sport in a season full of huge moments. I think 2020 is going to be a year in many industries, and sports being one of them, that we’re all going to look back and remember for good reasons and bad reasons and everything in between.

You know, and I think that what NASCAR has done to get it back on track — and as I said, more importantly, keep it on track and get it back to a regular schedule — is outstanding. I give NASCAR full credit, and right there standing next to them should be every stakeholder.

I don’t know the work that went in, but I’m sure my bosses and FOX had to work hard, the team owners had to work extremely hard, the teams, the drivers, the officials. The list is very long of everyone who did everything that was asked of them to put this together.

I want to take a second to thank the fans. They haven’t been able to come to the racetrack, yet they’re watching on TV and they’re supporting events. Social media is anything but quiet with their opinion about NASCAR, which I love.

So yeah, I think it’s a huge watershed moment. This whole year is.

Steve, I was wondering your impressions of Chris Gabehart as a crew chief, what he has brought to the 11 team, how he’s helped elevate Denny Hamlin’s career. And then also as a crew chief when you go back to Homestead last year and that decision to pit Hamlin and put that big piece of tape on the car and it kind of backfired, how you overcome that and repair, if you need to repair, the relationship with the driver to kind of keep that trust level high?

STEVE LETARTE: You know, I think Chris Gabehart’s numbers are unbelievable, what he’s done in just two seasons with Denny Hamlin. We’ve seen instant success from crew chiefs and driver pairings before, but I think this is kind of reinventing instant success.

And I think — when I’ve had conversations with Denny about this and his confidence in Chris is so high — and not just because of their success but because of their approach, it seems that he is a leader within that team, that he is in charge of that team.

Denny Hamlin is a huge star and is outspoken and has a flashy personality, but in internal conversations it seems very clear to me that Chris runs that race team. I think that’s very much how it needs to be, for the crew chief to be in charge.

The other thing Chris does a great job of is being his own person. That was an absolute mistake at Miami, a well-intended adjustment, an aggressive adjustment, to try to win your driver who has never won a championship, yet it was poorly executed.

I don’t know whether that was purely executed below the pit box level, wasn’t explained well enough at the pit box level, but the simple fact is mentally he would tell you it was poorly executed; it was a mistake. Yet I think that only makes them more dangerous. I think if they had 10 years together and that was their shot and that would’ve happened, you are right, perhaps there needed to be some repair or I can see where that could fracture a relationship.

But the fact that in one season they had that stage to make that mistake on only makes this duo more dangerous. I mean, listen, going back-to-back at Daytona 500s, the staff can go on and on on this call why they should be the favorite, but I think that’s it, that there are moments that it could have been a finger pointing competition.

Denny Hamlin fundamentally lost in the closing laps. He felt that’s a race he should have won; Chris Gabehart doesn’t say anything. Chris Gabehart makes a mistake with that tape; Denny Hamlin doesn’t say anything.

There have been opportunities for those two to mishandle issues, and they have done nothing but. They stand back-to-back into battle. Very impressed with what he’s done on the pit box and very impressed with the control he has of his race team.

Junior, you battled some injuries that were kind of unseen to people, and I’m curious with COVID, if a driver is in contact with somebody who has it or has very mild symptoms, what’s going to go through a driver’s mind who’s in the playoffs on whether to get tested or not and potentially end their playoff run if they do go get tested?

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: Well, I think the precedent has been set so far this season. You know, there’s a couple cases with Jimmie and Austin that played themselves out very similarly. The driver missed a week, and if that’s the case in the playoffs, then that’s just the unfortunate circumstances of this year.

You know, I’m imagining that NASCAR is having that conversation internally on how they would handle that — I mean, how would they handle it as far as is there anything unique that they would do or could choose to do? We’ve seen them do that in the past, adding Jeff Gordon to the championship one year because of what happened there at Richmond.

I mean, we’ve seen them do some pretty interesting things in the playoffs, I would assume that if anything did happen to the driver and they had to miss a race or a couple races, then that would be the end of their year and that would just be the unfortunate circumstances of their season.

But we’ve seen NASCAR go a different route before to give waivers and different types of concessions in certain circumstances. That’s become more and more common, I think, over the last handful of years. Those weren’t in the playoffs. Most of those situations weren’t in the playoffs. I don’t know how they would react.

But as far as the drivers, I don’t know enough about the protocol and what a driver’s responsibilities are to be transparent with his own personal situation. So I don’t know if that’s something that they could try to mask or hide from everybody to continue to compete. I’m not sure about the protocol in NASCAR.

I feel pretty good once you show up to the racetrack, I feel like NASCAR is pretty buttoned up on screening everyone and that whole process, which I experienced myself in Homestead.

I don’t know how that would work out if that were to go down. Hopefully it doesn’t happen. I think when Steve was talking about what a great job NASCAR has done to get this thing going, and he credits them to keep it going. I think that was probably the hardest part of this whole thing, it’s to try to keep it on the rails. Because as we get started everybody is a little bit nervous, okay? It’s working for a few weeks. Everything seems to be going well, and it’s easy to get careless or casual about it and take things for granted.

For there not to be a big issue or anything that derailed this whole process really stands out to me as probably the biggest success of the season for the industry.

JEFF BURTON: I think as the playoffs approached, I think it’s fair to say that a lot of drivers tightened it up even more in regard to making sure they weren’t exposed. There’s so much on the line. This is career stuff, right? This is career-making opportunities. Every one of these drivers is in this incredible position that we all relish.

I know they’ll tell you, well, I don’t want to make the playoffs if I can’t win it. No. If you don’t make the playoffs it’s an unsuccessful season. Once you make the playoffs, anything can happen. Like we’ve seen it.

I have a feeling that a lot of drivers have tightened it up a little bit. They were already pretty tight, but probably even tightened it up even more. And I also — listen, I’m going to give our drivers a tremendous amount of credit. Here’s Jimmie Johnson that didn’t have any symptoms. He didn’t have to say a word, but he did. There’s things bigger than the sport.

It’s exactly what Junior said; the incidences that we’ve had, they had to step up; they had to do the right thing. They set the precedents, and I think that’s what our drivers will do. It would suck, but they understand that this is bigger than they are, and they would — I really believe most of them — listen, it would be a hard conversation, but at the end of the day you have to look yourself in the mirror and do the right thing, and our drivers have a history of doing the right thing.

Kyle, you kind of mentioned how confident a lot of these drivers were going into these playoffs, and I feel like we’ve similarly heard the same kind of confidence from all of them. I know Byron’s name was also mentioned, but I was hoping to sort of do a quick poll and hear from each of you about who you think are names that shouldn’t be discounted or kind of potential underdogs that we could see in the Final Four?

KYLE PETTY: Listen, good question. I know that if we look at certain things, you can give reasons for a number of these drivers why they won’t make it out of the first round, and every one that I tell you won’t make it out of the first round will make it all the way to the third round.

That happens to me every year. That’s why I’m terrible in fantasy league. Because the thing is what — Aric Almirola, talking about him — talking to him today. He is extremely confident because he sees what that 4 car with Kevin Harvick does. He can judge himself in the same shop, in the same competition meeting on a Monday morning against the guy that won the race or run second most times this year. So they have been able to tighten it up and get things better.

Jeff Burton just talked about the drivers. This is career. This is career for these guys, and it is for the teams, too. It is for the crew chiefs. It’s for the tire guys, for the pit crews, for all these guys. They have made it. They have made it to the playoffs.

I think that to a lot of them, the no-practice, no-qualifying thing has spurred them and given them more confidence because they’ve seen guys like Kyle Busch go out in the first practice and be six tenths off, and by qualifying time, be sixth tenths ahead because he could adjust on it.

I mean, it’s really tight. You look at Kevin and you look at Denny and you look at playoff points. End of conversation right there. That is the one thing. But Dale Jarrett has said it a million times: nine guys move forward out of this first round on points. On points, nine guys. The winning has to start, but the winning comes. For some of these guys it’s not imperative in this first round. For a few guys it is.

Can they get it done? Like a Kyle Busch, can he get it done? Points will mean nothing to Kyle Busch if he starts winning races because he’ll just win his way to Phoenix, and that is possible.

It’s really tough to handicap. I even look at a Wood Brothers who’s there for the first time. I look at a Matt DiBenedetto that’s there for the first time. And who can doubt Matt’s DiBenedetto’s heart? Who could doubt his desire? Who can question that? Nobody can.

Put in this position, what do you think — with this position, what can he do? He’s a wild card to me because I’ve never seen him in this position before. I’ve never seen that team in this position.

So I think the first round is going to be — I think Junior probably said it when we first started the conversation about who we’ve seen doing it all year long. I think the first round is going to really mark the guys and they’re going to raise their hand and they’re going to say, hey, there’s seven of us and we’re going for those last four seats and we’re going to beat the guys that go against each other.

But I don’t think we’re going to know it until we run two or three races.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I think talking about underdogs, I don’t know that a real surprise is going to come out of this field and get to the final four. I don’t know that it’s going to be anybody that will shock you. But the one guy that I think has had one of his best years, has shown more speed this year than any other year, is Blaney.

He’s not getting the number of wins that the top guys are getting, but Jeff was asking who’s the No. 3, who’s the No. 4. I think Blaney is a good name for that argument of who’s a name that can get there.

To me that would be a bit of a surprise considering his performance over the last couple of years. It’s been decent, but he’s not in championship form. But this year, at least for most of the regular season, they had the most speed out of all the Penske cars most every week. Not getting the wins, but being where they’re really consistent.

I just don’t know that Matt DiBenedetto can do it. I just don’t know that those guys back there, like Kurt Busch or so forth, can flex that muscle for 10 straight weeks. I think they can shock and surprise here and there, but can they knock down the row of dominos to get all the way to Phoenix? I don’t think so.

I think that one guy that stands out to me that can do that that maybe typically isn’t on most people’s minds is Ryan.

STEVE LETARTE: I’ll just jump in and say when I look at favorites, because I get asked that question all the time, I lean on all those smart people in Las Vegas that set them in the sportsbook, and when I look at the favorites on all the internet sites, there’s 16 drivers in here and eight of them are less than 15:1.

There’s two favorites, but there’s six others that have pretty good odds, which tells me that even the people that are handling the money in Las Vegas don’t have a lot of confidence that somebody else could jump out and win it, too. There’s six other drivers that they are not willing to give betters long odds on, because what all these guys have said is, yes, I feel very confident that Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin have a big advantage to get to Phoenix.

Then you line up for a championship. We have seen those races go sideways.

JEFF BURTON: Yeah, before Junior answered I was going to say Blaney. I agree with everything he said. I think Blaney has the third most speed. I just think that when I look up, when I look out and I see what everybody is running, he has speed. Like he has exhibited speed.

The one thing that concerns me is I feel like — and I don’t have stats to back it up — but I feel like they’re going to have to step up pit road. They’re going to have to find a way — seems like to me they get beaten on pit road more than they should.

But again, I don’t have stats to back that up, but that’s my perception.

And then somebody that no one is talking about, but I certainly don’t consider him an underdog, is Truex. If you look at what he’s been doing, the consistency has been crazy, right? They’ve been exceptionally consistent over the last two months, constantly putting themselves in position. You keep putting yourselves in position that many times, eventually you’re going to get wins.

I don’t really call him an underdog, but as Steve just mentioned, the favorites being who they are and what they are with the odds, it says Martin is an underdog. So to me, Martin and Blaney are the two that I have picked as joining those guys going to Phoenix.

One of the more underrated stories I haven’t seen a lot of talk about is that the 4 team and the 11 team, they both have a shot at 10 wins, and that hasn’t been done since I believe Jimmie in ’07. That puts those guys in territory to be with Gordon and Waltrip and Earnhardt and Yarborough, and I think that would just be an incredible story. For anyone who wants to answer that or anyone that has a keen sense of history, what would it mean for Denny or Kevin to get to that 10-win mark?

JEFF BURTON: Let me jump in here because I have a real strong opinion about this. You know, I hear people say all the time it’s not good for the sport that Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick are winning all the races.

I think that’s a bunch of crap. They’re our sport’s most popular leaders. We had Jeff Gordon winning tons of races. We had Rusty Wallace winning tons of races. We had a lot of people win a lot of races in a year during the sport’s most popular time.

Part of sports is pulling for your guy and pulling against other people. The New England Patriots have been the — they’ve been the pinnacle, right? They’ve been the best team in the NFL for a long time. That doesn’t hurt the NFL. The rivalries that get created by that, the passion to beat them, the fan bases that absolutely despise them is good for the NFL because it creates rivalries. It creates passion.

When someone is succeeding and doing well, that’s good for the sport. That creates all those things that we love to see in the sport. If any time a driver and a team can put it together and make that stuff happen, I think it’s great. I think it’s awesome.

Part of the reason is because I know how damn hard it is, and when they can do that, I have a tremendous amount of respect for them.

I’m not pulling for them to do it, I’m not pulling against them to do it, but if it does happen, to me it only makes the sport better and it shows you how good they really are.

DALE EARNHARDT JR.: I’ll add my opinion to this. You know, I think that it is really good for the sport when guys are winning that many races. If it’s happening every single year, then obviously that takes the uniqueness and the special out of it.

But even if they’re not, even if this guy isn’t the most popular driver or the fan favorite, our sport needs to have those dominant performances at some point, at different periods in the sport.

We have to have those moments where really somebody stands up and does something really uncharacteristic or really unique, and that’s basically what we have with Denny and Kevin.

I think particularly with their stories — so Denny has kind of been this — everybody has sort of compared him to the best that hasn’t won a championship, which was Mark Martin, and is he going to supplant Mark Martin as that guy, the best guy that’s never won a title.

Here he has sort of caught lightning in a bottle with this package of crew chiefs and drivers that they have right now, and they’ve got so much speed and performance and he has so much confidence. He went into last year for the title and he said in the final, he’s like — he almost talked himself — it’s almost like he tried to talk everybody else out of expecting him to win it.

He was so unsure, I guess, or like, hey, we got here, and if we don’t win it, it’s tough to do, it’s one race, four guys. He just kept on talking himself out of being disappointed when the results were in. I don’t know that he goes in with that same attitude this year.

I think with another year under his belt with his crew chief, he’s going to go into this final race, you know, granted that he gets there, with this attitude that I’m going to win this race. I’m going to win this championship. I’m going to finally realize my dream. It’s going to happen here.

His tune I expect to be completely different when he gets to that final race than it was in years past because of what he’s been able to accomplish this year. He’s got the numbers to back it up and he’s got so much confidence going into that final event having won there last year.

Harvick, on the other hand, so we know Harvick is one of the greatest drivers in the sport. It’s those weird times when they do something that really drives it home, and when he tied Kyle Busch in wins in the Cup Series, for me that really resonated. Like, oh, man. I knew Kevin was great. I know he can wheel, but wow. He’s really got a big number there when it comes to wins, and he’s tied one of the guys who we have all talked about over the last decade as probably maybe the most talented driver that’s in the sport in Kyle Busch.

You know, I think it’s incredible that they’ve been able to do what they’ve done this year, and I think both of them are sort of destined to win this championship. I don’t know which destiny is going to decide which one it is, but I think one of the two of them is going to win it, and it’s almost been this sort of destiny moment this year for them — either Denny is going to finally win that first or Harvick is going to put himself in some unique company as a multi-time champion.

And I think people have given him a lot of credit for his talent and his ability, but I don’t think that we really, really knew just how good he was or could be or how much he could accomplish. He’s doing it now in front of us.

Pretty remarkable. And I think for a driver, they’re going to remember years like this. When you win six races in a year or more, you put an asterisk right there on that year in your decade or two-decade long career. That’s one of your favorites, and that’s what they’re experiencing right now.

SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL CONFERENCE CALL

September 3, 2020 By admin

With AL Michaels, Cris Collinsworth, Michele Tafoya and Fred Gaudelli

Thursday, September 3

MODERATOR: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today’s Sunday Night Football conference call. This is the 15th season of NBC Sunday Night Football and Football Night in America.

We kick it off next Sunday night in Kansas City with the Chiefs hosting the Texans in the NFL Kickoff game, then on to Los Angeles where the Rams open a new stadium against the Cowboys on Sunday Night Football.

Joining us on today’s call are our team of Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth and Michele Tafoya, along with executive producer Fred Gaudelli.

Over to Fred Gaudelli.

FRED GAUDELLI: Good morning, everybody, or good afternoon. Year 15 of Sunday Night Football. It’s been an historic decade and a half at NBC, but obviously this season will be one like none other. We spent a tremendous amount of time planning for, and discussing, how we produce this show at the level we have in the past in the era of COVID.

We feel like we have a solid plan to start the season but know full well that we’ll be adapting and adjusting as the season goes on.

Definitely excited for next Thursday. We’ve expanded our pregame show a half hour, so it’ll begin at 7:00 p.m. with our Football Night in America crew, and then we’ll take it over when we drop the banner – the championship banner in KC. Get ready for a tremendous quarterback matchup between Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson.

And then on Sunday night we open brand new SoFi Stadium, which I toured yesterday and is truly magnificent. Al will give you a lot more on that.

One note — next Wednesday night, the night prior to kickoff, the NFL is taking an hour of primetime on NBC for a show called “Inspire Change.” It’s a platform for the players and the league to discuss the work that they are doing together to advance social justice and equality.

Year 15 for Sunday Night Football, year 20 for me and Albeano. Happy anniversary, Albeano.

AL MICHAELS: Fred is our head coach, and he just said we’ll have to adapt and adjust. So, it’s almost like we’re going in at halftime and trying to figure out what to do as we move along.

As Fred said, obviously this is the most unusual season not only for us, but probably in the history of the National Football League. So, many different things to talk about.

But it’s very exciting to know we’re on the dawn of the season right now, and the way we begin is fantastic — Houston and Kansas City. You wish that Arrowhead could be full, but they will put some fans in there that night. It’s special, Kansas City winning its first Super Bowl in 50 years last year. Mahomes is probably the biggest star in the league right now.

Come back to LA on Sunday night. That stadium is off the charts. It has a roof, but the light comes in through the roof, and I was there the other day for the Rams’ scrimmage, and if you don’t sit there with sunscreen on the east side of the stadium, you’re going to get a sunburn. It’s very different. It’s very special. The Cowboys come in on opening night there.

And then off to the following week in Seattle against New England, so everybody wants to know what about the Patriots minus Tom Brady?

So, we have a tremendous way to start the season. Off we go. As we say, it’s a little bit of trial and error. It’s adapting and adjusting, but it’s very exciting right now, and everybody I talk to right now can’t wait for football to start, much like Cris Collinsworth. Go for it, man.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: I think that was my introduction right there. I am more than a little bit excited. I can’t remember a year in which I’ve been more excited about the start of football than I am this year.

This has been, by all accounts, a very strange year in 2020, and to get something back to normal — to get anything back to normal — and to watch the world champion Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes going at perhaps the second-most exciting quarterback in the league in Deshaun Watson, it just feels good.

For somebody who just loves the game of football, who just loves his job and the people I work with, just to get a chance to go back to something normal just feels fantastic.

Now, we all understand there’s a lot going on in the world. There’s a lot of things that we’re probably going to be asked to make comment about here today. But first and foremost, we’re excited about football. We understand the issues. We talk about the issues. We care about the issues. But we’re also very excited to go back to football and get a chance to see two great teams start it off.

With that I’m going to turn it over to my political consultant, Michele Tafoya.

MICHELE TAFOYA: Well, it’s interesting. I remember being interviewed back in April, I believe it was, and being asked what it was going to be like to return to football. At that time, I envisioned, well, it’ll be great. We’ll be over this thing. We’ll have crowds. It’ll be phenomenal to get back to normal.

Now, we’re not going to have the crowds, so it is going to be unusual. This thing didn’t go necessarily the way we wanted it, but at least we are going back, as the guys said.

My role is going to be hugely different in that I’m not allowed on the field, so I’ll be working from an area that’s called the moat, basically the first row in the stands, and that’s going to provide a lot of challenges. We love challenges on Sunday Night Football.

I’m eager to see how it all works out. Different for sure, but you know what? Like these guys have said, this is going to be a memorable season for a lot of reasons, and so just looking forward to the challenge.

Q. Cris, you guys are doing Dallas pretty quick, and I know nobody has seen anything that they’ve done since Mike McCarthy has taken over. Do you have any clue what to expect with this team with the new staff that has not been able to do anything really in a game setting?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: You know, I’m actually a little bit more curious about what they’re going to do on the defensive side than I am the offensive side. On offense, you have to assume that it won’t be that much different with Kellen Moore. There will be introduction of a few new schemes or whatever.

I’m going to take a guess that we might see a little bit of a role for Tony Pollard this year. I thought that he could give them — he’s such a different feeling back and maybe a little bit of a receiving threat coming out that potentially could make this a little bit different.

But my gosh, they are putting Kansas City Chiefs-like wide receivers on the field this year. CeeDee Lamb was my favorite receiver coming out. There certainly were plenty of other great ones in this draft, but he was my favorite. And you pair him up with Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup? I think you’re just going to see them go wide open.

And Dak Prescott has so many skills. I went through — what the hell else was I going to do? — I watched like every game this past year that the Cowboys played. He has so many things going for him. A, of course he’s the charismatic leader of the football team; but B, this is a guy that can run. He’s physically strong, has an ultra-quick release, and now has all these weapons.

If they get production out of the tight end as well, this is a team that really looks to be explosive to me on the offensive side, especially with the continuity with Kellen Moore.

Q. Cris, new era here in New England. We don’t have Tom Brady as the quarterback anymore, and now it’s Cam Newton, a completely different style of quarterback. What do you expect the Patriots’ offense to look like with Cam Newton now running the show?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: You know, we did the game last year with the Ravens, and we watched Lamar Jackson go through — if you remember at the time, they were 8-0, I believe, and we were talking about this was the greatest defense in the history of the NFL, right? They had given up like no points through the whole thing, and then Lamar got them and just went through them like a goose. That was almost stunning.

I remember Al and I kind of looking at each other like, ‘What the heck is going on here?’ But I think somewhere in the back of every defensive coordinator’s mind is this little thing that says, if anybody really knows how to run the option — because I was an option quarterback in high school and my freshman year of college — if anybody really knows how to run this thing right, there’s no way to stop it, because basically you have the quarterback now as a run threat, so you’ve added a blocker to the mix. You’re leaving at least one guy completely unblocked and just reading him with the quarterback, and it can create some real issues.

And so it never surprises me when defensive-minded head coaches, when they get a chance to pick a scheme or a style, they like that running quarterback option style of play. And so somewhere in my mind this doesn’t surprise me at all, because Cam Newton and Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels together, it just makes for a really interesting dynamic.

In many ways I think the Patriots are going to be the most interesting team to watch for the first few weeks.

Q. Fred, my question for you, how is NBC going to handle no fans in the stands? Is there going to be ambient or fake crowd noise in the background? What other differences in the broadcast can we expect this year?

FRED GAUDELLI: Well, you know, that’s something I think every network spent a lot of time on. What are we going to do to fill the void of no crowds from the sound standpoint?

I think the NFL has done a really great thing here. We were all discussing this over the spring and the winter, but NFL Films had natural sounds from 30 of the 32 stadiums over four years, so obviously SoFi and Allegiant there wasn’t any natural sound to be had because they weren’t built.

And what they created was, they created a sound loop that’s authentic to each stadium, and they’ve hired an audio engineer in each city to basically score the game as it’s going on. So, you’ll hear — when we’re in Kansas City Thursday night, we will have an Arrowhead sound, and then there will be an operator that will add the accents for touchdowns or turnovers or sacks or great catches or drops or things of that nature.

So, I think it’ll be as authentic as it possibly can be. And then inside the bowl, I think what they’re trying to figure out with the competition committee is just to have a constant sound of presence. So, there will be no riding the emotional swings of the game. It’ll just be one constant level, so the players get a little bit of energy.

That’s what I think the NFL, as they consulted all the different networks, I think we all thought that was the best way to go if we’re not going to have fans. I did say Kansas City. We’re going to have real fans in Kansas City next week, so you’re not going to hear enhanced audio.

But in SoFi obviously on Sunday night and probably for the foreseeable future, that’s what you’ll hear and that’s what you’ll hear on all NFL broadcasts that don’t have NFL fans.

Q. I know there’s other issues here, the racial justice and whatnot, but as we head into the second century of the NFL, you mentioned we have a new stadium in Las Vegas, the Denver Broncos have a trio of new sponsorships, partnerships with gambling interests, and I’m wondering if you guys could just speak to the evolution of — it used to be a taboo industry; the league didn’t want to touch it with a 10-foot pole. Now the league has embraced the gaming industry. Could you just speak to how that’s kind of evolved?

AL MICHAELS: I think it’s evolving, you’re right, and we had a call with the NFL last week going over some of the things that will take place this year, rules changes and whatnot. I said to the person we were talking to at that point in the league office, it’s evolving, but it appears to be about the same thing as it was last year in regard to what’s happening in the gambling world, and they admitted that it’s about the same.

We’re all on a path to we don’t know exactly where, but I’m as curious as anybody. I don’t know what the endgame is here. I don’t know that anybody does, but I do think that it’s pretty fascinating that yesterday DraftKings announced that Michael Jordan is going to be part of their operation and on the board, and the stock went up about 10%.

So, I don’t know what that really says. It’s a fascinating dynamic that’s developing right now, and I wish I could predict what’s going to happen here, but clearly everybody feels that they want a piece of the pie — of the gambling pie. People are interested in putting down a couple of shekels during the game or even inside the game, not just the end result and how many points will be scored and all of that.

But this is a mystery. It’s a mystery right now. I don’t know where it goes. I do know that the leagues are very excited to be a party to what could be a gigantic industry.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: It’s kind of interesting. With PFF, I have a lot of people who are from Europe that work here, and that’s where the company was actually started.

But they laugh at us with all of this because it’s been such a part of their culture for so long that you could bet on anything, and when they see the gnashing of teeth and everything that we’re going through in this transition period, they just find it very, very entertaining.

For the rest of the world, I guess this is just sort of status quo, but it is very different for us.

Q. Cris and Al, how surreal is it going to be to call an NFL opening-night game from a mostly empty stadium? And number two, what do you think the experience is going to be like for the fans who are there, the few thousand fans who are sitting around in a mostly empty stadium?

AL MICHAELS: Look, it’s going to be very, very different. The other thing that’s going to be vastly different, even though we have fans in Kansas City next Thursday night and they plan to put in I think 22% of the capacity at Arrowhead Stadium, which is probably around 18,000 fans, everybody is going to wear masks.

So, it’s going to sound different than it would, obviously, if people were up and cheering and yelling and screaming and doing whatever they do during the course of the game. So that’s going to be extremely different. It’ll be like one-fifth of the stadium.

All I can tell you, and I’ve told this story before, when I did the San Francisco Giants in the ’70s, I got used to doing games with no fans because the crowds would be like 3,000. One night they handed me the attendance figure and I started naming people — who was there. I’ve got a lot of experience with this. It’ll be very, very different.

But as Fred said, it’s going to be embellished. I was at the Rams’ scrimmage at SoFi last Saturday and they were piping in some noise, and if you didn’t look around, you would think that there were fans in there. Hopefully we’ll strike the right balance and it will sound like a real game.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: Yeah, I’ve been in multiple stadiums where I had no fans anyway, so I’m used to it. It’s no big deal.

Q. Fred, it’s very much a macro question that obviously a lot of people in your position have had to answer. What in your opinion are the biggest challenges of broadcasting the NFL this season?

FRED GAUDELLI: I’d say the biggest challenge is that everything that was routine for the last 15 years, at least for Sunday night, is no longer routine, and everything you do or have done has had to be rethought. Even just walking into the stadium.

But as it relates to the broadcast, if you’re talking about not having fans in the stadium, well, there’s certain things you’re going to try to avoid to try to keep reminding people that there’s nobody here, and it looks really empty.

I would just say the biggest challenge is that routine that you’ve been in and really didn’t have to think about is no longer there for you. On our end, we’ve probably had about a dozen people opt out because of their concern of traveling during COVID — camera people, replay people, a few production people — which I totally understood and supported their decision.

These are people that have been on the team for 15 years, and there was a lot of unspoken language that could occur, and things would happen. That doesn’t happen any longer now because it’s new people. And I’m sure they’re talented, but they’ve not been in the system and they’ve not done it our way, and there’s going to be the growing pains that come with that as well.

I’d say the last thing, just not having preseason to kind of get your feet back underneath you, look at the 65 monitors for me and more for Drew or the cadence for Al and Cris — this is when I say this, this is when I do that. Because there is that little awakening that we all go through usually in Canton that we’re now going to go through in a very, very meaningful game next Thursday night.

I would say the combination of those things are the biggest challenges aside from the biggest challenge of all, which is how do we keep everyone healthy.

Q. Cris, this is an Eagles-related question. They struggled on pass defense last year, as you know, and they gave up 27 passing TDs. They really couldn’t stop elite receivers. They added Darius Slay on the back end and they’ve added Javon Hargrave on the front end to fortify what looks like a pretty good defensive tackle rotation. I’m curious what your thoughts are on the improvements they’ve made and the impact it might have on their pass defense?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: I was just talking about Darius Slay being the A player. He’s legit. He didn’t have a great year last year. He had a good year, not a great year, but he is a guy that can take away that No. 1 receiver. He’s going to give Jim Schwartz some options that maybe he hasn’t had in the past.

They’ve had sort of equal cornerbacks. They didn’t have that Stephon Gilmore back there that could really be that guy. Darius Slay is used to being that guy for Detroit for all those seasons.

And the other guy you mentioned is Javon Hargrave. Now, Hargrave, he’s almost a forgotten guy but there’s very few people in this league that can have an impact rushing the passer from the inside. Aaron Donald is at the top of the list.

But Javon Hargrave had a lot to do. Now, there was always a lot of rushing weapons in Pittsburgh to be able to — obviously you can’t double team everybody so maybe he benefitted a little bit from that — but this team is not a whole lot different than that, either. So, there’s rushing threats all the way up and down that line, and I think putting him next to Fletcher Cox is going to just add another layer there.

And you know what you’re going to get out of Schwartz. He’s going to take chances. He’s going to play cover-zero. He’s going to go for it. In the biggest moments of the game, he’s going to go for it, and when you do that, you’d better be darned sure you have some guys that can cover on the back end.

So, Darius Slay, to me, is one of the big additions in the league this year.

Q. Fred, obviously unlike the NBA and Major League Baseball, there’s no natural backdrop of fans in a standard shot. Did you give any thought to showing virtual fans in stadiums as cutaways in stadiums that won’t have fans there? Was that considered? And for Cris, sorry to ask you a Dolphins question, but with Byron Jones, Ereck Flowers, Kyle Van Noy, Emmanuel Ogbah, Shaq Lawson, all of their additions, could you see them on the fringes of playoff contention this year?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: Man, I hope so. I’m so ready — Barry, you’ve known me for a long time. I’m so ready to do games in Miami and Tampa and Jacksonville again. I mean, it’s been unbelievable. This streak, the entirety of my career that I believe — I think we did one Thursday night game in Tampa, but I don’t think we’ve done a Sunday night game in the state of Florida since I’ve been a part of this for 10 years now.

Yeah, I’m sort of hoping in the back of my mind that — and you know it’s going to start with defense, right? It has to with Brian as your head coach and what he’s been able to do.

But those guys bring a little juice, as well, that Van Noy and Roberts and some of those guys — just knowing what the culture was of Byron Jones, knowing what the culture was in New England.

But for my money, if I were starting a football team, I can only tell you what I would do. A, you’ve got to have the quarterback; B, in my opinion, in this league today, you have to look at teams like the Kansas City Chiefs, the Dallas Cowboys, the Denver Broncos, what they’ve done, adding weapons at the receiver position.

But 1A and 1B for me would be build a secondary, and with Xavien Howard and Byron Jones and the guys they have back there in that secondary, I just think this team is being built the right way. I really do. I think that they’re being built the right way.

I don’t think there’s any huge rush on Tua; Fitzpatrick can handle that thing fine. So, I’m kind of excited to see where they’re going. And a defensive-first approach worked pretty well for the Dolphins back in the early ’70s, so we’ll see if it works again.

FRED GAUDELLI: Yeah, spent a lot of time looking at virtual fans, and kudos to Fox for what they’ve done on their baseball coverage. Here’s where I feel like virtual fans fall short. In football, we have 25 cameras that cover the game. You would have to instrument 25 cameras and then build virtual fans for every single one of those angles in a realistic perspective. The technical power you would need to do that would increase the compound tenfold. It’s just not feasible financially or, I would probably say, technically at this point, to have every single camera configured so you can have it.

And when you don’t have every single camera configured, as when you watch some of these games that Fox uses, you see the pitch from centerfield camera, there’s no one in the seats. You cut to the batter as you’re standing in the box to put in his batting average or what he’s done tonight, and you see there’s nobody behind him. Then the ball gets hit and then you see fans because that camera has instrumented fans.

So, it becomes a little bit of a gimmick, and this is not a shot at Fox because I think what they’ve done is tremendous, but it’s just not realistic. So, you have fans, you don’t have fans, and at the end of the day, it just didn’t feel right to me.

I know we discussed it pretty extensively inside NBC Sports, and without the ability or the financial ability to instrument every single camera, it just didn’t feel right.

Q. We saw during the playoffs last year that the Texans could hang with the Chiefs for a certain period of time before that game changed rather drastically. What can they do to compete with them over a period of 60 minutes? And second, today will be the 11th Astros game I’ve covered this year, and more often than not I’m seeing someone get hurt in just about every game. I’m curious if the penchant or the possibility for injuries will be the same in football as it was for baseball given the unusual training period leading up to this regular season?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: What will (the Texans) do differently? I think that the problem that everybody faces when they play the Kansas City Chiefs is how do you cover these guys, right? And at least last year, Houston had one of the highest percentages of man coverage. They’re a man coverage team. It’s what they believe in. They want to get in your face. They want to get after you.

Typically, what Kansas City wants to do is put three blazing wide receivers, the Tyreek Hills, the Sammy Watkins, the Mecole Hardmans of the world on one side, and then take Travis Kelce and the running back on the other side.

So last year it was Damien Williams and he obviously had a great Super Bowl, playoff run, and the whole thing. This year it’s Clyde Edwards-Helaire. Not everyone is a fan of college football, but I can tell you nobody wants any part of covering that guy man-to-man.

Now you’ve got to make up your mind. Are we really going to try and play man coverage against all of those guys all the way across the field? Personally, I don’t think it’s possible. The teams that can at least give them a little bit of a problem are teams that can get there with a four-man rush and play some zone defenses in behind there or double-team and help.

So, we’ll see what the new-look Houston Texans are going to be this year on the defensive side, but I do think that with J.J. Watt coming back healthy, Jonathan Greenard, some of these guys coming back, Mercilus. If they can get the pass rush going and play some zone defense this year, I think they have a chance.

AL MICHAELS: That’s an extensive analysis from my man Cris. Let me put it to you this way: You don’t want to fake punt from your own 20-yard line. It’s as simple as that. With that, let’s go to Michele.

MICHELE TAFOYA: I agree, Al.

FRED GAUDELLI: One thing about the injuries, the baseball restart was chaotic, to say the least. It was not going to happen, it was going to happen. I think the NFL — I’m not saying it’s going to be any different, but I think they’ve had a more systematic approach. The first, I think, two or three weeks they were in camp it was all about conditioning, was all about getting their bodies right, and then they slowly moved to helmets and pads, and obviously we’ve seen them the last week, these scrimmages that they’ve been having amongst themselves. Hopefully it won’t be — I’m like you, I watch a lot of baseball, as well, and my team, the Yankees, there’s two guys getting hurt every single night, seemingly from nothing. But hopefully because of the fact that the NFL had a more systematic lead into their season, some of those things could be avoided. But let’s face it, no one has played any football yet, so we’ll see what happens.

Q. Guys, greetings from Tampa where the spirit of George Allen is alive and well. The future is now. My question is how rare is this kind of all-in philosophy to this degree, the sense of urgency? What’s going on down here in Tampa? How rare is this in the NFL? And guys, is this grand experiment going to work?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: I don’t know, but I cannot wait to watch it. I mean, there’s so many things this year that made this season so incredibly exciting. But for me one of them that I’ve never experienced — like I’ve never called a game in which I haven’t seen the teams involved in it on tape at least once, right? Whether it be meshing together a preseason tape and at least get a feel for who’s where and what and all that sort of stuff.

But this is going to be a team, an offense that we don’t even know what it’s going to be. I mean, the difference between Bruce Arians’ offense and Tom Brady’s offense is so stark that we just don’t know what it’s going to be.

Mike Evans and Chris Godwin are two receiving threats that Tom Brady, simply put, did not have anybody even close to that on his team last year as far as a down the field threat. Of course, Julian Edelman is pretty good. And three tight ends that can really play on this team between Howard and Brate and Gronkowski.

One of the things I’m completely psyched about and one of the things I like even more about it is I have not a clue what they’re going to do in that game until they walk out there for the first time, and we don’t know what they’re going to try and do defensively with the Saints to try and play defensively against that.

It is just like the start of college football season, only you don’t get to start with some team you’re going to beat by 50. You’re coming out playing in the NFL on Week One and there are so many unknowns, it’s just unbelievable.

Q. Could this be a spectacular failure down here in Tampa?

AL MICHAELS: I don’t think so. I think Cris talked about the guys that make up the essence of the roster. You’ve got the great receivers, you’ve got Gronk going down there. As far as I can tell, Brady hasn’t fallen off any cliff. Great respect for the coach, the coaching staff down there.

Yeah, if you tell me that five starters get hurt the first week, yeah, you can have that happen, but Cris I think summed it up perfectly in the sense that not only with the Bucs, but with almost every team in the league, we sort of have an idea what might happen because you do have some history with the teams bringing back all these guys that haven’t played preseason.

But it’s going to be fascinating to watch. I think Tampa Bay opens up against New Orleans, so right off the bat you’re going to get a pretty good idea of what’s happening, obviously, going up against the Saints on opening day.

But to piggyback what Cris says, this season is going to be so fascinating because there’s more mystery, at least at the outset of the season, than any season than I can remember. But I don’t anticipate a disaster down there.

MICHELE TAFOYA: Can I add one thing? Tom Moore is the offensive consultant down there. I think he might be a secret weapon for Tampa Bay just in terms of his past. He texted me recently that he is having the time of his life, which is a good sign.

Q, He’s seen it all, right, Michele?

MICHELE TAFOYA: Yes, he has seen everything.

Q. Question for Fred: You kind of talked about the challenges logistically and everything, but in terms of the production elements, can you talk a little bit about the cool C360 camera and anything else you guys are excited about in terms of cameras, graphics, other production elements for Sunday Night Football this year?

FRED GAUDELLI: Well, that’ll be the big-ticket item this year, and actually Drew and I are still in Los Angeles but heading to Kansas City today so we can rehearse with this tomorrow night inside of Arrowhead. Basically, it’s a camera that will shoot sideline-to-sideline, but it’s an AK camera, you know, 8,000 more pixels than a normal camera, so it allows you to zoom in to a great extent without any picture quality loss whatsoever. And not only can you zoom in, you can pan the full 180 degrees from sideline-to-sideline.

It would have been great to have been able to experiment with this in a game or two prior to this Thursday, but I have a little bit of a vision in my mind, and I think it’s really going to help Cris illustrate a lot about what happens in quarterback play, a safety turns his hips, the quarterback goes the other way, where you can really manipulate the screen to accentuate what Cris is describing to the audience.

And then the other thing is because it rides on the SkyCam right below it, you’re going to have some incredibly intimate replays of people like J.J. Watt or Chris Jones. Cris Collinsworth was preparing a tape about the Kansas City defense and he was commenting on Chris Jones’ hands and how he uses them and how he’ll grab the offhand of an offensive lineman. Not only will we have a great view of that, but I’ll be able to zoom into his hand grabbing the hand of an offensive lineman with no picture quality loss.

You know, again, it would have been awesome to have a chance to play with this for a couple of games, but now we’re going to come out of the box with it. So, I think it might be a little bit slower to start as we kind of get our legs underneath us with the system, but we’re really excited about it.

You know, as far as the other elements, obviously we’ve increased our virtual graphic presentation every single year. We do that — we’re doing that again this year, but again, had to account for these graphics without having the fans as a backdrop, without having a full stadium as a backdrop. We’re redeveloping some of those to account for that.

And then we are going to have some — we’re going to hopefully have some — for the games we don’t have fans, and even in Arrowhead a lot of the fans who are home watching the game will do a virtual fan mosaic that we’ll have in the broadcast from time to time just to kind of keep the fans engaged.

Q. Has the COVID situation changed the way the production team functions? Is anybody located back in Stamford that would not have been previously? How has that changed your work flow for games?

FRED GAUDELLI: Yeah, it’s changed it pretty significantly. Before this year, every single person who worked on Sunday Night Football was at the game. This year our entire graphics operation, our edit operation, that will come from Stamford. It’s not like that hasn’t been done before with other shows or at other networks, so I’m not really too worried about that other than you don’t get to see the people that you would see on a normal basis.

We actually had to add a track to our compound so we could have social distancing among all positions. So, everybody in a truck, and everybody will be wearing a mask. Everybody will be at least six feet apart. I don’t know how much detail you want, but I know they upgraded the air filtration systems in the truck to operating-room grade.

So yeah, there have been a significant amount of changes due to COVID.

Q. My first question is for Fred. Fred, I joined the call slightly late and you may have addressed this, and if so I apologize to everybody listening. Have you gone to a stadium and heard how the crowd noise will sound?

FRED GAUDELLI: Have not. Up until now, no one has been allowed in the stadium.

Q. How do you imagine in terms of how it will play through the screen in terms of what the viewer hears? What’s your understanding in terms of how much — will it sound as natural as possible or what’s your opinion on that?

FRED GAUDELLI: Yeah, I think it’s going to sound very natural. I have heard — look, I heard a demo from an Eagles game, and the Films people really did — think about taking four years of natural sound and creating a four-hour sound track that you basically live score as the game is going on.

You should really talk to NFL Films because the system they’ve built is really fascinating. It’s very simple and really kind of accounts for all the things that happen in a game. I don’t think you’re going to get booing for some obvious reasons, but you might get some groans.

But they have a set amount of buttons, and there’s not a lot. There’s about maybe like a dozen buttons that would be game-winning touchdown, go-ahead touchdown, visiting team touchdown, interception, sack, and that demo that I heard was tremendous. I mean, it was an Eagle crowd. You even got the ‘E-A-G-L-E-S Eagles’ chant after they scored. I think it’s going to sound good.

I’ve never seen NFL Films do anything that wasn’t first-class, best-in-show. They’re just excellent and the system that they’ve built — again, they had to do this for 32 stadiums. You just think about the tedious nature of that, but they did a tremendous job. I really don’t have very many worries about that. I think it’s going to sound great.

Q. For Al and Cris, in terms of calling the game with no fans, energy-wise, just how does that impact what you do?

AL MICHAELS: I think that we addressed this I think before you got on about — I think we’re all used to working under different circumstances. I grew up doing baseball with no fans in Candlestick back in the ’70s. I think that once the game starts, we’re just focused on the game itself.

It’s not that we don’t hear the fans, and we like to ride the emotion of the fans during our broadcast, too. I understand that, but I think with the sound that Fred just described and how it’s going to be supplemented inside our telecast, I think we’re going to feel as if the fans are there, and especially at least in Kansas City on opening night. We’re going to get some percentage of the fans which will be in the stadium. That will help.

And after that, I think we’re so locked in to what’s happening in the game and trying to go through the mechanics of the game. And as Fred has described, this year is going to be very, very different. We’re going into uncharted territory in a way with some of the people working outside the compound at the stadium, etc.

So, I think what we have to do is just kind of put the blinders on like a horse, look straight ahead, and do the game. I’m not anticipating it being any sort of a problem, but you miss the fans, though, any time you’re doing a game, and it’s exciting and the place is full and all of that and there’s a little bit of an energy there.

But I think we have to — not trick ourselves into this, but just look straight ahead, go right down the stretch, call the game, and I think it’s going to be fine.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: I think you ask a really good question because for me, the hardest thing when I started broadcasting was the tone. You know, when do you get excited? When are you in a conversation? When are you down? When are you up? To me that was the hardest part. It sounds ridiculous, but it was for me the hardest part.

I’ll give you one of my little secrets, that when I started working with Al Michaels, I just now play follow the leader. Wherever he goes, I kind of go, because I think that tone-wise, he has mastered the art. He’s figured out what the guy sitting at home is feeling.

And remember, it’s Sunday night. People are getting ready. They’ve got to go off and go to work the next morning. It’s the end of a long weekend. They’re comfortably sitting on the couch, many of them with their wife or grandmother or whoever else is in the room, and that tone is really important.

So, is it going to be different? I don’t know. I don’t know exactly how we’re going to deal with it, but I can tell you this: wherever Al goes, you’re going to find me too.

FRED GAUDELLI: I think it’s going to sound like a Sunday night broadcast. I don’t think there’s any question about that. I’m very, very confident. As Al said, once the game starts, you’re into the game. I’m very confident in the soundtrack that’s been produced. I don’t think the audience is going to notice a big difference.

Look, even in the other sports I’ve watched, whether it be the NBA, the NHL, I’ve really not noticed that difference. They’ve really made it sound like a real game.

Q. This is for Michele. I was wondering if you could expand on how your job is going to change from a logistics standpoint during the game, and how you intend to sort of gather information when you’re not on the field?

MICHELE TAFOYA: Yeah, it’s going to be something. I said to Fred the other day, I can’t believe I’m going to show up to a stadium and not walk on to the field. It’s going to feel strange. I’m going to do a lot of my information gathering leading up to the game, obviously, and some of the things I normally do on the field I won’t be able to do.

I don’t know if it will evolve during the season, but I think it will. I think we expect a lot of things to change throughout the season. Maybe it’ll get — the access will change.

In the meantime, I’m bringing binoculars to the game for the first time in my career. I want to be able to see things up close like I usually can. We have some really creative communications set up for halftime interviews and postgame interviews and the like.

It’s really going to be — I’m going to need much more comfortable shoes, I think, because I’ll be running around that first row quite a bit. But those are the things everyone has got to deal with it, and so — but that restriction is really strange.

As Fred was mentioning earlier, even showing up to the compound, normally I’d go right to the truck and meet with Fred for a while and we’d go through some things. Can’t do that. And then I’d go to our little featherlight and maybe have some food. Can’t do that.

We’re going to be sort of isolated and in an office of our own or a space of our own. Communication, verbal communication is going to be — it’s always important, but I can’t imagine — the importance it’s going to take on this year can’t be overstated.

Q. How will you do halftime and postgame interviews?

MICHELE TAFOYA: I think it’s going to vary team to team and stadium to stadium, but I think — do you want me to expound on that?

FRED GAUDELLI: Sure, I’m fine.

MICHELE TAFOYA: So, I think in some cases at halftime we might have a ring down where I’m actually on a phone with the coach. That may be the case in some. In others, it may be the case that the coach walks to where I am in the stands if I’m near a tunnel and we chat from an appropriate social distance.

Postgame it sounds like what we’re going to do is have a camera down on the field with a monitor for the player so we can show the player highlights. The player will hear me through a headset or whatever mechanism they’re going to throw on him and be able to respond in kind.

It’ll be good. It’ll be really a chance to maybe have the player look at highlights while we’re doing the interview, which we haven’t done in the past, so we’re looking at it as an opportunity.

Q. My question is for Al, kind of along the same lines. Curious if you could walk through your weekend in terms of meetings, access, and any differences for you and Cris in the booth.

AL MICHAELS: Well, the slide first. The slide is on hold, I guess, at least at the outset of the season. I was thinking about — I was watching a baseball game the other night and the guy was trying to steal second and he comes up — he goes to the ground and he comes up six feet short, so maybe that will be our slide this year. Hopefully we’ll be able to bring that back before the season.

I think for us, one of the really great things that we’ve been able to do through the years is meet with the coaches and the players and be at practice, and there’s a one-to-one that won’t exist right now because what we’re going to have to do, as all the networks will, at least at the outset, Zoom calls.

I’m going to miss the interaction, the kidding around. Some of the best stories that we’ve been able to tell on the air have come from those meetings or come from going down on the field. Michele talked about going to the field before the game. That was very valuable, and that’s not going to happen right now.

So, we have to adjust in that regard and find different ways to come up with the good stories that we come up with that we’ve only gleaned in the past by going down on the field.

So that’s going to be different. Again, here we are. It’s a new world. We’re not crazy about this new world, but we’re going to, as we said, adapt and adjust and do the very best we can and try to get as much information as we can.

Q. I have a ratings question for Fred. I know that obviously the NFL is probably going to be winning all of these ratings battles with all of these other sports coming up, but even as soon as next week, assuming the NBA games go on as scheduled, the opening game is going to go up against a Lakers game with Lebron James against Russell Westbrook, James Harden. Obviously, the NFL will easily win that ratings battle, but is there any concern about these other sporting events, unusual competition maybe eroding the numbers a little bit?

FRED GAUDELLI: I mean, I think you’d have to say yes because we’re looking at a sports calendar that no one has ever seen. We’re going to see the Stanley Cup championship be awarded, the NBA championship be awarded, potentially a Triple Crown be awarded, the U.S. Open, the Masters, all these signature events that we all love to watch, and they’re all coming down at the same time.

Will it be a factor? I don’t know how it couldn’t be a factor. But as you pointed out, the NFL is the ratings king and there’s not even a close challenger. We feel really good about that, but I think there has to be some kind of impact.

Q. Was there any thought of having the announcers work remotely? And number two, can you tell us what we can expect from the vision, at least at home, of seeing all the signage down the field? I believe the NFL is allowing teams to sell signage, much the way you might see in soccer or hockey or basketball, because they are, of course, so revenue deprived at this point. If you can address those, I’d appreciate it.

FRED GAUDELLI: Sure. As far as the announcers calling the games from home, look, it’s something that we’ve discussed and planned for in the event that no one was able to travel or someone wasn’t able to travel or we all couldn’t get to the game. We had those technical plans in place if that were to happen. Hopefully that’s not the case.

Hopefully things are going to start trending or keep trending in a good direction and we’ll be calling the games from site. But if it had to come to that, we would be prepared to do that.

As far as the signage is concerned, it’s funny, you referenced some of the European soccer games and things of that nature. After a while it becomes wallpaper.

Now, the way I understand it, I believe from goal line to goal line the messaging is more NFL messaging and not commercials. I believe the end zones is where the teams can sell to sponsorships and things of that nature. But I’ve always viewed it as wallpaper. You’re watching a game. Yes, you notice it, but it doesn’t really distract or detract from what you’re watching.

Q. Cris, being a former wide receiver for the Bengals, what is your outlook with them getting Joe Burrow? What is your outlook for them for the future?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: Is cautiously optimistic allowed in this setting? It starts to get a little close to home here. There have been some good years in Cincinnati and there’s been some rough years. I know Mike Brown and the Cincinnati Bengals organization pretty well, and the two years that we went to the Super Bowl back in the ’80s, we had an MVP in Kenny Anderson and we had an MVP in Boomer Esiason, and the amount of draft capital that was thrown at them as potential trade bait for Joe Burrow this year lets you know that Mike Brown believes he has another one.

What we saw from Joe Burrow last year, was he on a great team? Yes. Did he have great receivers all around him and a great offensive line and all those things? Yes. But there’s something about this kid’s makeup that’s pretty special. You can tell he is all business from the first minute he got drafted, from the first minute he won the National Championship.

I think the only time I’ve ever seen him sit back and smile a little bit was smoking the cigar after the game, and even then he seriously looked like he was on to Cincinnati, as Bill Belichick might say.

We’re excited about it here. They’ve got A.J. Green back and playing again. Tee Higgins is going to be exciting. Joe Mixon is signed now. I don’t know, I think there’s a lot of optimism in Cincinnati right now.

Q. Do you guys play Fantasy Football and is there a Sunday Night Football fantasy football league?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: There should be.

FRED GAUDELLI: I don’t.

AL MICHAELS: We wouldn’t do any better than anybody else. It’s funny, one of the things we love about sports is that you think you know, but you don’t know as much as you think you know, and I don’t care who you are.

We have access to far more stuff than the average fan does, and we’ll go out to the game and say, ‘Well, this is the way it looks to us,’ and the game will turn out to be completely opposite. We would do no better than anybody could find on the street in fantasy football.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: I really enjoy fantasy football, but it is a completely different art than football football. If you have a fullback who only plays 10 snaps a game that plays on the goalline and has 12 rushing touchdowns, well, that’s a great fantasy player, but you wouldn’t even think about him on a regular NFL team.

Yeah, it’s an art form. It really is, and the people that know how to manipulate their way around fantasy football, it is amazing. I mean, they know wide receivers and running backs and quarterbacks and defenses and kickers better than I do. I love talking to them. Sometimes I don’t even know what they’re talking about, but it is definitely an art form.

It’s a big part of the reason that people love watching primetime football games, because a lot of times it comes down to those last two games of the week, which is Sunday night and Monday night games. So, it’s great for us.

FRED GAUDELLI: So everybody is aware, something that we’ve been working on for a little bit of time, we decided this year to minimize the cross country travel for Al. We give him a handful of byes so he didn’t have to make those long treks from Los Angeles across the country.

His first bye week will be week 3 in New Orleans, and then after that we’re going to take it month by month just to kind of see how the schedule shakes out. This is a longtime plan, as I said. Al has been a part of it.

I know a lot of you have speculated that Mike Tirico might be calling more NFL games for us. Mike will obviously call those games, the first, Week 3 in New Orleans. And for the fourth time in the last five years, he’ll call the Thanksgiving night game in Pittsburgh this year, and then the following Sunday in Green Bay.

And then we’ll kind of look to see if there’s a game or two that Mike might also appear. He will call — as you probably remember, we acquired a second wild card game in the off-season. Mike will call that game. But just so everybody is on top of what we’re doing this year.

TRANSCRIPT – 2020 STANLEY CUP QUALIFIERS

July 27, 2020 By admin

Monday, July 27, 2020

Sam Flood

Doc Emrick

Eddie Olcyzk

Brian Boucher

Patrick Sharp

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today.

Hockey is back. NBC Sports is thrilled to resume our coverage of the NHL season this Saturday. We have more than ten hours of coverage across numerous networks and in a moment, we’ll be joined by our NBC Sports NHL commentators for this call, Mike “Doc” Emrick, Eddie Olcyzk, Brian Boucher, Patrick Sharp, and the executive producer of NBC Sports, Sam Flood, who will outline some of the unique coverage plans we have for the remainder of the season.

Let’s begin with opening remarks. First up, Sam Flood.

SAM FLOOD: We are very excited about this opportunity to cover one of the greatest spectacles in sports, the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and this unique way and the wonderful plan that Gary Bettman and the NHL have put together to allow this season to continue.

The effort that they have put into creating the two bubble cities and creating an opportunity for the season to come to its rightful conclusion with the raising of the Stanley Cup, big tip of the cap to Gary and Bill Daly and the rest of the league leadership. They have done a wonderful job.

Our job now is to tell this great story and to let the world know how much fun it’s going to be to have these teams battling it out inside these buildings.

And with the two locations in Toronto and Edmonton, I will just give you a quick overview of how we are doing this. For the first time ever, there will be a host feed from each building, so in Edmonton, Rogers will produce the host feed that other broadcasters, particularly through the first round, will lay their own commentary on top of.

And in Toronto, we’ve got some NBC producers and directors who will be producing the host feed from there, and back in our Stamford building, we will be adding commentary, graphics and unique elements that make it an NBC show. So we will be doing that to both the feed coming out of Toronto and the host feed coming out of Edmonton.

And then in terms of our announcers, we’ve got them spread around. We have got talent on site in Toronto, Pierre McGuire is about to arrive in Edmonton. Doc Emrick has got the best studio ever created outside Detroit. We can’t tell you the exact location; that remains secret. Stamford will have the core of our group, play-by-play and game analysts which will be calling some of the early games from there.

Eventually the majority of the calls will come from inside the buildings. We will have a complete broadcast team in Toronto. We’ve got Gord Miller there. John Forslund is on site there. Mike Milbury is traveling in, and he will be on site in Toronto inside the bubble, as will Brian Boucher, and Brian will be inside the glass for a number of games.

We consider it similar to an Olympic experience; that you’re all-in. This is a little bit longer than the 17 or 16 days of an Olympics, but the talent group and the production team is ready for an incredible job experience.

Once the second round of the playoffs ends and the entire event moves to Edmonton for the conference finals and finals, we will park a truck from NBC Sports next to the Rogers host feed and supplement that coverage and originate the entire telecast from out of Rogers Place out there in Edmonton.

I know everyone is going to ask about audio, so I’ll get ahead of that. The audio, we will be experimenting as we progress. We think there is incredible sound inside the glass around the boards of a hockey rink. We think there’s some colorful language, so the NHL has decided to rightfully put the games on a five-second delay.

But we will be taking advantage of all that incredible audio that comes with hockey; and probably have learned an awful lot watching the Stadium Series and Winter Classic Games with the ice surface isolated from the fans. We realize there’s some unique audio we can play with during that, and that gives us a good test of what we can get out of these games.

So the enhanced audio from inside the glass can be supplemented by some audio EA SPORTS has that we will mix in as needed. But we are going to really test and find out what the best balance is and what the best experience is for the viewers as we evolve through this.

Visually, we have got a lot of cameras in these host feeds. There will be up to 30 cameras including a really cool JitaCam that hangs beneath the scoreboard at center ice and gives you a 360-degree view. It can swoop in behind the power play, and there’s nothing better than to look at that top of the point position of the power position, and looking in at the goalie, trying to figure out where the puck is going to go in the net. We think that it will be a unique way to look at certain part of the game, and it will also be a fun camera to use in transition.

So our directors are excited to have that opportunity to execute with this JitaCam; that along with the audio, and along with what Steve Mayer and the NHL group has done to turn these hockey arenas, which are usually filled with 18- to 20,000 screaming, lunatic passionate hockey fans, they have created a set and a content and a structure that’s going to have a feel for each team that’s playing in the game.

The audio in terms of PA and in terms of music on goals, the celebrations, will make you feel like you’re in the building of a home team that’s just scored. So hats off to Steve and his team for making the buildings look remarkable.

And right now, I send it to an undisclosed location, somewhere outside Detroit. Mr. Emrick?

MIKE “DOC” EMRICK: Thank you, Sam. I know that you don’t often want to hear praise heaped on executives or entities, but this is a great commitment from NBC to me, and I’m excited at the possibility of working on these thrilling games ahead from this location. It is greatly appreciated, and I really appreciate the dedication that they have made to me myself.

But for myself as well as hockey fans, the sun has finally burst through and we’ve got finalized plans to return to play and skates hitting the ice and athletic heroes in uniforms after we have waited, and applaud the gallant people who have kept us going through this absence and continue to keep us going through a very difficult time.

Seasons in jeopardy because of injury have now changed. Full recovery has enabled some athletes to return to their teams and contribute toward going to the Stanley Cup. Jake Guentzel comes to mind. (Vladimir) Tarasenko in St. Louis; (Mikko) Rantanen in Colorado.

This time some things have changed, not only the time of year, but now 24 teams have a shot, and we have experts on the line to join myself, but it’s a dice roll I think with all of those series. The most ever teams in history; they do so in two locations, and try to pick a winner in all of this; I challenge you to do that.

But the great admiration I have is for the players who made this commitment and have all gotten into the bubble and are ready to put on this wonderful show. And you consider the sacrifice that they always make at this time of year, but the additional sacrifices that they are making and the commitment that the league has made to them to cover them, not only them, but their families at this time. That has got to be somewhat difficult, but has enabled them to focus and make this commitment that we are going to be thrilled to document.

With that, I will pass it on across the turf and across the ice to Mr. O.

EDDIE OLCYZK: Thank you very much, Doc. Great to be with everybody. Thank you for joining us.

Well, here we go. Hard to believe that the puck’s going to drop for real here this coming Saturday. And really looking forward to wearing a couple of different hats for our great team at NBC, whether it be in studio working in the studio or calling games from the studio and then myself, working my way to one of the bubbles.

I’m really looking forward to getting back and seeing some familiar faces, masked up hopefully, and looking forward to calling the greatest game in the world — by the league, the leadership of the Commissioner, Mr. Bettman, Bill Daly the deputy commissioner, the Board of Governors, the Players Association, great job by not just our leadership, but by our boss, Sam Flood at NBC, to be a part of this.

And I’m sure it will be documented hopefully here once we get into what this thing entails, and just seeing a little bit and talking to a few people of what they have got going on in Edmonton and Toronto; I will say historic to get to this stage and get to this and get the Stanley Cup presented in September or early October, which doesn’t roll off the tongue like normal, but what is normal about what we are all going through here in 2020?

So just an amazing job by many, many men and women, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. It’s going to be a pretty incredible, enjoyable time to see NHL hockey.

Interesting thing for me, two things that come to mind is — and I just relate it to when I was a player, and that was a very, very long time ago. I played in an era where there were best-of-fives in the NHL playoffs, and the one thing I remember vividly is an 18-year-old or a 19-year-old playing in those five-game series, and that’s what we have in the Qualifying Rounds.

We will have eight series where Game 1 — I’m not going to say it’s a must, but I’m going to say it’s an m-u-s, and I’m getting ready to cross the t. Game 1 will be absolutely pivotal in those play-ins to try to get to the first round of this tournament. We haven’t had competitive hockey in a long time. We understand that. Everybody is playing from the same deck.

But I think it’s going to be just incredible to watch how those things develop and how these series develop.

The players, I think it will be entertaining. Doc mentioned it. He kind of touched on it, being a handicapper for our horse racing team at NBC in the Kentucky Derby right around the corner on the first Saturday in September, it is wide open.

Doc, as we talk about all the time, if you have goaltending, you’ve got a shot. If you get goaltending, if you can stay hockey healthy, and obviously the most important thing is stay away from the virus; you’ve got a shot. And I think that teams and managers and organizations that I’ve spoken with feel like, “why not us?”

What team, who does it favor? I don’t know. I don’t know if Sharpy or Bouch has an opinion on who they thinks it favors more, but it’s unknown and I think that’s why it’s going to be the best reality TV that you could possibly ask for coming up here in this Saturday when we drop the puck for real.

So I think the five-game series is going to be just incredible theatre, and we will see who gets off to a good start, and plenty of storylines, and I’m just looking forward to being a very small part of our great team at NBC.

From my basement in Chicago to the bubble, if I’m allowed to disclose that, you know what, Bouch, I already did. How you doing, buddy?

BRIAN BOUCHER: I’m doing great, buddy, thank you. I am inside the bubble here in Toronto. I’m at the Royal York Fairmont. The accommodations are nice. It’s been a bit more busy since the team showed up yesterday and there seems to be some life. There seems to be some energy around the hotel.

I made a visit to the arena the other day before the teams showed up. Looked like there was a lot of energy there. A lot of moving parts, and I tell you, the work that has been done by the National Hockey League to pull this off, it’s nothing short of a miracle.

I will say, it’s been a difficult four-plus months for everybody. I can speak for myself; it’s been hard. Mostly mentally. I’ve been healthy physically but just emotionally and mentally, it’s been a real grind, and I can say that I’m really grateful and I’m really thankful to be here today, and I’m so excited to be here for the next two months to be talking about hockey.

You know, I’m so tired of talking about what’s going on in the news that I just look forward to focusing on the teams, the players, the game and seeing this season — seeing it finish out, and that to me is what’s really exciting. I think it’s going to be a unique challenge, no doubt. Winning the Stanley Cup this year, I think is going to be the hardest of any year. I don’t know how you start from zero and go to 60 like this. We’ve seen some evidence of it in the past where we’ve had World Cups of Hockey and Canada Cups and some of those tournaments have provided some of the greatest drama we’ve had in our game.

So I’m confident that these players will be able to rise to the occasion. But it’s going to be — it’s going to be interesting it see how it does play out, and to answer maybe one of the questions that you posed — because I’ve thought about this: Who has the advantage and who is going to be in it?

I think the goaltenders are going to have a tough time at the start, and the reason why I say that is because I can think back to when I was getting back on the ice as a player in late July, early August, and how much of a struggle it was and how much of an advantage I felt like the shooters had over me, and the timing and fighting through traffic.

You get into practices and yet in those practices or skates with your teammates, it was never about playing defense. It was about just trying to score goals. I found as a goaltender, it was a frustrating time of year.

Not until we got to November or December when teams started to buy into playing defense, did I start to find enjoyment in playing, because finally you felt like your teammates were buying into defending and it was less about scoring goals and more about trying to find ways to win.

So I think initially, it’s going to be hard on the goaltenders, and I think the teams that have the young, offensive talent, I think that will be the first to come back more than anything. It will come back quicker than it will for the goaltenders, which might make for some great drama. We might have a lot of goals scored. We might have a lot of chances just because defensive assignments are missed, but I think it will be exciting.

But I think eventually these guys will buckle down, they will find a way to defend and they will find a way to get in shooting lanes, even if it does hurt because they know there’s a lot on the line.

And I think the other thing that will be interesting in these playoffs is the health. I think the length of those rosters this year, you’re going to have more guys that are going to play a role in helping their team win a Stanley Cup this year than we would have seen in years past, whether it’s from physical injury or perhaps God forbid catching the virus. I just feel like there’s going to be more players with the length of the rosters that are going to have an opportunity to contribute and really be a part of winning the Stanley Cup.

Whereas before, maybe if you were on the outside looking in on the practice squad, you were part of it, but you didn’t really feel like you were part of it.

I feel like this year it’s going to be a lot different and I look forward to these next two months, seeing the drama unfold, and I’m just so grateful and thankful that I can be a part of it.

I’ll pass it on to Patrick Sharp. I don’t know where he’s at. He’s got about 15 different homes, so I don’t know where he’s at those days. Sharpy, take it away.

PATRICK SHARP: I appreciate that, thank you. I’m on the East Coast myself. State of Connecticut with the family on lockdown.

And Bouch, it was interesting to hear you talk about the goaltenders timing being off and how some guys might struggle early on. That’s what you looked like when I was shooting at you over the years. Your timing just didn’t keep up to my shot.

As far as the league starting up, I’m jacked and pumped to get out of the house. I know my wife is excited that I can direct my energy back toward the sport of hockey instead of rearranging the furniture in each and every room in the house and annoying her in different ways.

My hockey helmet — as my guy Ed Ville likes to say to the league, kudos to the leadership of the NHLPA for getting together, not only the logistics of this tournament put together, but hammering out a few more years of that CBA on both sides, and I just can’t explain how excited I am to be back in the studio covering some hockey.

As far as what we are going to see, I’m like everybody else. I’ve got my opinions and my guesses, but nobody really knows. I favor teams that have youth, that have speed that play wide open hockey and put an emphasis on speed and skill. I think they are going to be tough to keep up with in these early Qualifying Rounds.

But at the same time I look at certain teams with coaches that get the most out of their players; that their details will be on point right from the start, will be good defensively. Those will be teams that are tough to play against. We’ll see how much the physicality comes into play.

I look back at the last playoff games I saw, and it was St. Louis-Boston in the Stanley Cup final and that was as physical and as fast and as angry and highly skilled hockey as I’ve seen.

Now the buildings were both rocking at that point. Playoff hockey was going nuts. I’m excited to see how quick the players can get to that level of intensity with all that they are going through off the ice.

So I’m excited to be a part of it. NBC has been huge in my life. It’s been a new team for me to join since retiring from the National Hockey League. It’s my second go-round with the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and I couldn’t be more happy to get things underway.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you to the team there. Great opening remarks. Now we will open it up for questions from the press.

MIKE “DOC” EMRICK: You can tell four and a half months have passed. Our opening remarks were really long, weren’t they. We’re cranked up. We want to get at it.

Doc, do you know in what round you will start being on-site and in the meantime, what do you look for from the challenge both logistically and in terms of the energy level, of calling games from a studio by yourself?

MIKE “DOC” EMRICK: I actually practiced some this morning with the group in Stamford, and they felt it was comparable to what we had. We practiced with Game 7 of last year’s Stanley Cup Final.

I think the access to information and all else will be similar to what they have in Stamford. The monitor size, etc., I think is going to be the same, if not comparable, and so I’ve been set up really well.

I’ve not looked that far into the future just now. I’m looking at day-to-day and I’m going to do a practice period tomorrow during Pittsburgh-Philadelphia and then my first game is Islanders-Rangers on Wednesday, the exhibition game.

So all of this is exciting. I have done monitor-only games before, so that is not new. It’s just something that hasn’t happened in recent years. Pierre and I did a game that involved the Los Angeles Kings in Sweden, one of those early-season games that was done from Europe. We did that in Stamford working off a table and a couple of monitors then.

There is an adjustment to it, but it is the same game and we are seeing it on really clear screens. So we’ll just do our best to bring the game to people.

It will be exciting and I’m sure I’ll be jazzed up about bringing emotion to it. I think just watching the game will do that. Otherwise, I can’t predict how all of that will be, but I’m pretty excited about the possibility, I’ll tell you that.

Just to be clear, is the plan for you to be in Edmonton for the Final?

MIKE “DOC” EMRICK: I don’t know. A lot of this is just right now. I’ll let Sam address that as time passes here. Right now I’m just going from this to see how things work out right now.

I know you talked about the one camera for the scoreboard, any other angles that had been new in Toronto and Edmonton? I think on the NHL presentation there was talk about a JitaCam in the stands?

SAM FLOOD: The JitaCam is the one that we are talking about. That’s the jib that hangs below the scoreboard. That’s the big Detroit — we have all the robotic cameras we need, some in new positions, just experimenting how down low you can cut the game a little differently.

As we all know in the game of hockey, it’s not where the puck is, but it’s where it can go next just so we make sure we don’t lose perspective for the audience.

Eddie, is this almost like sports nirvana for you the next couple of months with the amount of summer horse races and now the hockey playoffs going on?

EDDIE OLCYZK: Well, it’s going to be hot and heavy, I know that. It’s going to be more pucks than ponies for the next five weeks, and hopefully if we can pull it off, I think still to be determined what my role will be with our horse racing team at NBC for the first Saturday in September for the run for the roses at Churchill Downs in Louisville.

At this time of year, look, when you have hockey and horse racing going on, I’m a happy human. It’s going to be a lot of fun. As I think you can tell, and I think Doc touched on it, too, there, but in Sharpy’s voice and Bruce’s voice and Sam and hopefully in mine is, I think we all know what is going on in the real world. Like we understand what the real world is.

But we have an opportunity here to entertain, to tell people what we see, whether it’s in Doc’s undisclosed location outside of Detroit, or me in-studio from a smaller studio calling a game there with Doc, or standing next to Sharpy in the studio, we’re hopefully going to be there to entertain, do what we love to do, hopefully we do it really well, and just really looking forward to seeing some familiar faces here in the next couple of days.

I know there’s going to be great energy and a lot of excitement, but I’m just looking forward to being part of it and then hopefully get a chance to be part of our Derby coverage come early September.

A goalie question for Brian. You touched on it a little bit, about the pressure on a goalie coming back after a layoff. Curious, how does that change in this specific time, goalies not seeing pucks in a lot of cases for several months and then having to come back and see them in the heat of the playoffs, and then you’re in the bubble, I don’t know how much you’ve walked around or been able to see but what does it look like from a goalie’s perspective? Usually you’re expecting to see fans and such. How do you see goalies adjusting to the new look of the arena inside?

BRIAN BOUCHER: I’ll answer the second part first. The NHL has done a great job of taking the empty seats away, so it gives you a different deal when you’re inside the arena. I always felt it was different as a goaltender when you went to the big arenas and had your morning skate. Nobody was in the building.

Just had a different feeling in there and then when the fans were in the building, it felt like it was tighter. It felt like there was obviously the energy. But the one thing that I’m a little curious about is they have got these LED screens that are behind the benches, probably about 20, 25 rows up, I would say, and plus there’s a stage over there. You know, what type of lighting will be there and will this be something that the goaltenders have to get used to or will it not be displaying anything while play is going on. I think it will be a little bit of a unique challenge for the goaltenders, different sight lines. I’m not saying it’s going to throw guys in games off, but it’s going to take a little bit of an adjustment.

And it sounds to me like the exhibition games may not have everything that we are going to see on August 1, but maybe enough to give these goaltenders a look-see into what it’s going to be like.

Because keep in mind, they are not doing any morning skates at this building and they are doing them all at the Ford Performance Centre, the first time they see this building is when they step on the ice for warmup in that exhibition game.

As far as the goaltenders and the challenges right now, the difference is, when you come back in August, and you start skating and you get to camp in September, just the level of urgency and the importance of the games, you just know it’s not the same. It’s not a playoff game. And this right here, the guys that have been around for a while, Tuukka Rask of Boston, he’s been a part of playing for Team Finland in the past, maybe anybody that’s been a part of the World Cup, they can really lean on that experience of having to get to some pretty intense hockey right away.

This is hard for goaltenders. It’s not about taking shots and down the wing. It’s about having to fight through traffic. Having to kill penalties at key parts of the game. That takes some reps to get into it.

So it’s going to be a challenge for these guys. And the other thing, too, is what do the coaches do if they feel their goaltender is not on their A Game in a best-of-five series? The hook may be there a lot quicker than it typically would be because the coaches simply have to find a guy that can do the job.

I think there’s a lot of pressure on those goaltenders right off the hop. I’m so curious to see which are the guys that can rise to the occasion.

The Lightning have been knocking on the door for a number of years. From your perspective, what would be an aspect of their game that would be important for the Lightning if they want to make that run to get over the hump this year in these playoffs?

EDDIE OLCYZK: I think for Tampa, they are a team, at least when I look at them, incredible goaltending. A little bit of everything on the back end there from size and mobility and experience, and then when you look up front, I mean, a lot of depth. They have got some guys that have some size, and I think they have got some bite.

I like the addition of (Blake) Coleman because he brings a lot of speed and he’s got a little bit of bite to his game and he can finish.

But at the end of the day, you’ve got to find a way and you’ve got to be able to overcome adversity, when you’re down in a game or down in a series. Are you a favorite to pull it off and they are certainly good enough.

I can’t speak for Bouch or Sharpy, but certainly they are good enough to get it done, and they need their big guys to step it up at the forefront. I know (Steven) Stamkos was banged up a little bit there, but looks like he’s going to be good.

They have an opportunity to play a couple of seeding games here to get situated and get their timing back and everything else and be interesting to see if a lot of those coaches, if everybody plays in all three of those seeding games.

And is it incredibly important to be the No. 1 seed? Look, I don’t know, this year is so unpredictable, but you might have an opportunity where maybe you do rest a guy maybe one or two of the games. If I was a player, I certainly would want to play in all three to get my timing up to speed.

But for me I think it comes down to the big guys stepping to the forefront and doing what they are expected to do, whether it’s Stamkos or (Nikita) Kucherov and a guy like Victor Hedman.

For me, Tampa, would I be surprised if they were not around towards the end of the bubble in Toronto and working their way to Edmonton? I certainly would be surprised if they are not, but that’s how close it is and the parity in the league. To me, you’ve just got to get it done. Enough talking, and you’ve got to figure it out.

BRIAN BOUCHER: I look at who is going to be successful coming out of this break and there’s a couple things that need to happen in these playoff rounds.

One, your goaltender needs to be good. They have arguably the best goaltender in the league in (Andrei) Vasilevskiy. I love how he competes and gives his team a chance to win.

Power plays are going to be real important in the playoffs. We hear that every playoff season, how important special teams are. Tampa has a pretty dangerous power play. And the last one is the coaching, the details, the physicality. Are these guys going to bring the heat right from the start of the playoffs, and I think they will, because of what happened last year.

If we go back to March, and I know we can’t really look at the last 70 games of regular season hockey. It is a new season going into these playoffs, but I do feel like there is something to prove in Tampa Bay. They have guts down the middle. They have got three nice defensive pairing units. They have star power that should be motivated. I think they are definitely a dangerous team to watch in the Eastern Conference.

PATRICK SHARP: Going along with what I said in my opening remark, teams with offense and skill are going to be the ones that get off to good starts, and this is a team that I’m referring to in Tampa.

I agree; Vasilevskiy just may be the best goaltender in the National Hockey League. I think this team has everything it needs. They added the grit that’s needed in Coleman and (Pat) Maroon in the off-season, also (Yanni) Goudre. These are important decisions to their club, and I think makes them more playoff ready and I think they have a chip on their shoulder from last year.

The other thing, too, is that they don’t have a Columbus Blue Jackets that are preparing for them for a playoff series right now like last year. They are in a Round Robin. Nobody knows who is going to get the Tampa Bay Lightning when the dust settles here in a week.

But one thing that’s for sure: If that offense is going to reign supreme to start, this team has it all but they have also added the pieces that’s needed to give them playoff success and a top-notch goaltender. I think this has got to be the favorite to come out of the Eastern Conference.

EDDIE OLCYZK: One more thing if I could piggyback, for the whole tournament, are the coaches that have the conviction to play the guys that are going. Now, you may have an Anthony Cirelli or a Maroon that are really going, and maybe the big guys, it’s taking them awhile.

But you know what, like you can’t have any lips on the ice. You’ve got to tighten up your belt and you’ve got to be ready to go when your coach taps you on the shoulder. That goes right across. It’s the coaches that can have the feel of who is going, in these series, and the Qualifier and into Round One, because look, you’re going to need, we know, you need many players and you’re going to need guys that step up.

But what coaches see and feel when you have got third-line guys or fourth-line guys that are going and maybe you give them a little bit more ice time. You can’t have your star players or the guys that you lean on all of a sudden be looking over their shoulder — like enough. It’s got to be all-in and if you play 12 minutes or 18 or 35, that’s what your coach is asking to you do and he’s going to have to answer for it if you are playing this player more than that guy or whatever.

If he’s going, you’ve got to play him because it’s — and especially in those Qualifier Rounds and I know Tampa is not in that, but I think you understand where I’m going with this is that this is new, it’s not normal, but this is the new normal to start the playoffs.

And if you have got guys that are going and playing that aren’t the big guys, you know what, get going and you’ll be out there. So I think that’s something to keep an eye on. Coaches can see that, feel that and have the conviction to go ahead and play those guys a little bit more than maybe most people think they should.

But you know what, at the end of the day, it’s only about one thing: Winning or losing, and that’s the only thing. And we’ll see who steps up when it comes to that part of the game.

I’d like you to describe the Doc Emrick bubble. Can you describe a little bit physically the layout that you’re going to be working in to do these games?

MIKE “DOC” EMRICK: The chair I’m sitting at has a table in the front. Monitors on the left and right. I would guess that they are about 30 inches diagonal and the one on the left is the one that I’ll be receiving the game from. The one on the right will be for occasional isolations of my broadcast partners.

So I’ll be able to see them rather than — normally we will be getting — we will signal each other if I am sitting next to Eddie after 14 years, we kind of learned body language signals to each other when one needs to get in. But I may have isolations of them, as well as replays that will show coming back from commercial just like they would if I were in the arena or if I were in Stamford where some of the other announcers will be.

Directly in front of me is a small iPad which also doubles as the camera for any brief on-cameras as a laptop, and on the laptop they are able to show me graphics or cards that I would read that are promotional announcements, etc.

So there’s a small audio mixer that would have my headset and microphone patched into it, as well as a mic that pins to my blazer. So I would have two different folk mines in case one went down and the microphone pinned to the blazer is for the on-camera and the headset mic is for broadcasting the game.

So it’s very compact. It is very comfortable. I’ve had some practice with it. We’ll do some more practice tomorrow. And currently, they are on one big monitor, they are showing, again, the first period of Game 7 of the Bruins and Blues from last year. I’m able to watch all of the games on that monitor, too, in case I get an urge to practice some more.

The technology that you’re introducing, it’s obviously going to provide viewers with an entirely new look at hockey. We will have never seen anything like this. When hockey returns to its conventional fashion, when we start filling arenas again and fans are actually packing in, how much of this technology are you able to keep and how much is a one-off because you have empty buildings to work in? Can you keep some of the technology and bring it forward?

SAM FLOOD: We are cautiously optimistic that we can keep the new toys, particularly the JitaCam. The league is going to get comfortable with it in play and since it’s beneath the scoreboard, I don’t think it will be a distraction to the fans because it will never block the puck on the ice.

So over time, we think it’s something that could evolve. Obviously there’s a cost involved, but for big series like the Stanley Cup Final, it might be something you incorporate in shows like that.

In terms of the audio, being on a five-second delay and putting microphones on players and inside the glass area, you’ll get some pretty unique sounds, but we do know there will be some words that Doc knows not to use on television.

How much has the network’s Olympic history and pedigree helped you in spinning this up and feeling like you can do it? I mean doing remote shows like this has been part of the Olympics for a while. Did that help you in anyway for making this feel like something you guys could accomplish?

SAM FLOOD: Hundred percent, our Olympic structure and system and leadership both in the production and technical side, has given us a roadmap on how to execute here. There are lessons that we’ve learned through the years.

Things have evolved, like what we are doing now, graphics no longer traveling to a lot of our hockey games, that execution was already in place.

So as we had new ways to be efficient and also to be smart about how we allocate our resources, we are able to execute at new levels, and thankfully the Olympic Team has broken a lot of barriers there. Going all the way back to 1996 when the tape room for the Olympics was at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and the control room for those Olympics was in Atlanta, Georgia.

It’s just so forward thinking, Dave Mazza and his team, they get you way ahead of the game and now Tommy Popple and his team have helped put everything in place for this series.

What do you think of Philadelphia’s chances? They were arguably the best team in the NHL when the stoppage occurred, so what do you think of Philly’s chances and what do you think their strengths and weaknesses are as this tournament begins?

PATRICK SHARP: I’m excited about Philly’s chances. They are a team that, boy, were they clicking on all cylinders going back to February and March, hottest team in the National Hockey League, well-deserved bye in the first round if we want to call it that.

I think Oskar (Lindblom) is going to give them a little bit of inspiration, the three-year contract, him being around the guys again. That’s been an inspiring story for everybody across hockey, and it’s a matter of recapturing that hunger to me. They are a team that when I watched them play, their bottom six forwards really had an impact on the game. Interchanged six to eight guys on that bottom group, but every night it was one of those guys chipping in with the goal, it was being tenacious on the forecheck. It was being good on the penalty kill with the final minutes to play. Takes a lot of pressure off the big boys in Philadelphia and we know who they are.

Philly is a dangerous team, but I need to preface that by saying: I don’t know what’s going to happen coming out of this thing. It’s a whole new season. These guys have been off for a long time. Some of these young kids in the league can change their bodies over four and a half months. They can gain confidence. They can come back as new players, and having said that, I’m just really excited to see how it all plays out.

BRIAN BOUCHER: I think the addition of Kevin Hayes has been huge for this club. He’s a guy that plays on both sides, and I think that’s important. Big down the middle but can contribute offensively.

I think he’s been maybe better than what people would have anticipated. Maybe the length of his deal is a little long. There’s no doubt about that, but that doesn’t matter for this year’s playoffs. He’s been great for this team and I think his energy in the room has helped.

The additions of (Matt) Niskanen and (Justin) Braun in the back end have solidified their back end. That’s important. Sharpy talked about the bottom six. I think a guy like Scott (Laughton) who is a former first-round pick, he’s a guy who is starting to find a role on this team and he’s a big part of that bottom six.

To me, you talk about the stars of the team, (Claude) Giroux and (Jakub) Voracek, they have been here a long time, but the emerging star on this team is Sean Couturier on that top line. He’s been fantastic and a big reason why they have had success. Don’t discredit Alain Vigneault and what he’s been able to do, accountability is huge. Respect in that room is huge. I’m not so sure that it was there with the prior staff, and I think Alain Vigneault comes in, I think guys respect him and know he’s been in the league a long time. He’s been to the Stanley Cup Final a couple of times, and guys know that, okay, this is a guy that means business. He holds them accountable. That’s important.

The big question mark for me, and he’s got a bright future, but he’s going to turn 22 here in August. Carter Hart is going to be a great goaltender in the National Hockey League. The question will be can he perform, right here, right now, and if he can, there’s no reason why Philly can’t feel like they should be a team that could do it. They could have a chance to be the team.

But to me, it a question mark. It’s a fair question mark. I think he’s going to be a great goaltender. It’s just that he’s 21, 22 years old and we’ll have to see how it plays out. They should feel just as confident as any team in the East.

EDDIE OLCYZK: Regardless if this was April or August, a very dangerous team; again, the unknown of coming off the four-month pause. But both Sharpy and Bouch touched on all the important parts of this team.

But I really think getting, bringing in Braun and Niskanen really helped solidify this back end here, I really do. I think it’s taken some pressure off, especially a guy like (Ivan) Provorov who had a tough time last season, and then those guys show up and obviously the year before that, he was sensational.

I think I said that I think at one time during one of the Flyer games broadcasts, you know, this guy is moving and playing like a Norris Trophy winner here. That’s how good Provorov was two seasons ago and last year — again, it happens. Young players.

But Chuck Fletcher and his staff, they brought in some veteran guys there and I don’t think you can underestimate enough that staff that they have behind the bench with the experience.

The one thing with Alain Vigneault is his teams in my opinion, for the most part, have always over-achieved, and I think there’s something to that, and consistency when you look at — and Sharpy played against those teams in Vancouver forever. They were always prepared and seemed to play a little bit better or maybe a little higher on the totem pole than maybe people thought that they could and I think it starts with AV there.

So really interesting to see them, and I think they are a dangerous team. They were a dangerous team for me in March, and in April, and that’s not going to change here. So it will be interesting to see how they do in the seeding games and go from there.

After all the years doing this, I feel there’s this body and mind rhythm of covering a season, and I’m really feeling that’s disrupted now. So I’m wondering if you guys feel it, and if so, do you think the players will feel it? And lastly, do you think the viewers are also going to be, lack of a better word, challenged to deal with hockey in July and August and in September?

EDDIE OLCYZK: I don’t think viewers will be at all.

MIKE “DOC” EMRICK: I don’t think Eddie and I will be challenged that much. If there’s any kind of rust at all, it will probably rub off pretty quickly with all the games that we are going to be exposed to, either as viewers ourselves or as participants.

The fans have gotten into other competitions in the middle of the summer, international series of various kinds. And the one that stand out in my mind a lot is the one of ’96, which had a fanatical following, too. But I think this is — Patrick Kane’s quote, “This is March Madness.”

And I think that the commitment that the athletes are making and the competition that we are going to see is going to windup involving people just like the Stanley Cup would in the springtime.

Yes, there are people that are going to have other things to do, but I think that the word-of-mouth and social media are going to spread rather quickly with the intensity of the performances that we are going to see.

I don’t think Eddie and I are going to miss a whole lot. He’s probably going to give me a hard time about the Pirates, and I’m going to give him a hard time about some of his picks when the Derby comes around in September.

EDDIE OLCYZK: I think that it’s up to us to sell and engage our fans, and the fans of the National Hockey League, to understand that, look, this is — I talked about the unknown of the Qualifying Round — to me, it really is up for grabs because players and teams and coaches will react differently, and you know, I really believe that our fans are just absolutely, wanting to see hockey again. We’re going to give it to them, and it’s up to us, whether it’s inside the bubble as Bouch is right there now, and eventually I’ll get there, or calling a game from a monitor and working with Doc.

Look, we’re going to work it out. We’ve worked long enough together where I think I really believe that we’ll be able to have the same cadence and symmetry once we get through a game or two and I think it will just be like we’re sitting right — I don’t think anybody will notice, really, to be honest with you.

Now, for us, it’s a little different viewing, selfishly, as you know, being in the buildings and the (TD) Garden where you’re sitting up top in the press box and you’re able to see things develop and what have you.

We’re going to be following the puck when we are calling it off the monitor, so I mean, that’s going to be challenging at times, but you know, that will be my job to pick up things that are behind the play or to draw attention to.

But I think for us, that’s just going to be the adrenaline and energy of calling the greatest game in the world and working for the team that we do at NBC is just going to be a lot of fun to entertain people. There’s challenges, but that’s — we know what’s going on in the real world and we’re going to try to entertain the hockey fans, and to know that we are going to be on all day, as Patrick Kane said, it’s going to be up and down. We’re going to have games going on.

The logistics part of it, there are going to be some games where you could have multi overtime games going on during the course of the day, and when you’re expecting to drop the puck at a certain time, that may be a little bit later than normal because there’s only one ice sheet, and you might be following a double or triple overtime game. Your game may start three or four hours later.

It’s the hand that everybody’s been dealt and we’ll be calling it, whether it’s at Noon Eastern or maybe at Midnight we’ll be there, and we’ll be calling it and looking forward to the challenge and bringing the greatest game in the world to the fans, and that will be a lot of fun and hopefully take people away from the real world for a period of time.

MIKE “DOC” EMRICK: Who knows, up in New England, you may have a Stanley Cup race with a goaltender that started with a fractured finger in the playoffs.

They were experimenting with officials having whistles with no “t” inside the whistle. I don’t know what that will sound like, but that’s one of the things I’m going to listen to to see whether they actually use those or not. Coaches wearing masks; how many are going to do that? Will they all do it? The Hurricanes had a team picture where everybody in the team picture this year was wearing a mask. Ian Cole started his playoff beard in October. If Colorado wins, it will be a year old. I wonder if it will be down to his waist by then.

These are the questions that America might be asking as we get further along, and then again, they may not care at all. It’s all the fun of getting into this.