NFL Primetime

NFL Primetime is a sports television program that has aired on ESPN since 1987. The show is presented similarly to ESPN's own SportsCenter, featuring scores, highlights, and analysis of every game of the week in the NFL.

Until the 2006 season, Primetime aired every Sunday night during the NFL season and it preceded ESPN's coverage of Sunday Night Football (it even aired when ESPN did not have a Sunday Night game, especially from 1990-97 when TNT had Sunday night games the first half of the season). The show was hosted by Chris Berman, with analysis from Tom Jackson. Berman and Jackson recapped Sunday afternoon's NFL games with highlights, statistics, and commentary.

Pete Axthelm was a regular from 1987 until his death in 1991. Through the show's history, other co-hosts included John Saunders, Robin Roberts, Bill Pidto, and Stuart Scott. Pidto was often the target of good-natured ribbing by Berman, since Pidto often did recaps of games featuring losing teams. Roberts also seemed to be assigned to recap almost every game the Tampa Bay Buccaneers played between 1990 and 1992, when the Bucs were fielding some of the worst teams in NFL history. The position of co-host was dropped prior to the start of the 1998 season.

Rather than provide the usual package of scoring highlights, NFL Primetime presented extended highlights which also showed less dramatic plays. This provided context for the greater depth of analysis of each game. Some of the less dramatic plays would be used to demonstrate an overall large accomplishment. During the highlights for the Bears-49ers matchup in 2000, when Terrell Owens broke an NFL record by catching 20 passes in a game (since broken by Brandon Marshall), all 20 of Owens's receptions were shown. Other examples involved seemingly unsuccessful plays ultimately benefitting a team. For the highlights of the Buccaneers-Dolphins game in 2000, a contest marred by heavy rains which came down to the final minute, a play where Bucs running back Warrick Dunn broke a tackle in his own end zone to avoid a safety was shown to demonstrate it as one of the biggest plays contributing to the Bucs's victory.

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