The NBC television network's in-studio pre-game coverage for their National Football League game telecasts has had a rather inconsistent history in comparison to other pre-game shows (such as The NFL Today on CBS and Fox NFL Sunday on Fox). The following is an overview of the various titles and formats relating towards NBC Sports' NFL pre-game coverage.
NBC's first official NFL pre-game show was GrandStand, a program that doubled as a competing sports anthology series to ABC's ABC's Wide World of Sports during the off-season (GrandStand also served as the pre-game show for NBC's Major League Baseball Game of the Week during the 1976 season). GrandStand premiered in 1975 with hosts Jack Buck and Bryant Gumbel (who joined Buck sometime later in the season). Prior to 1975, NBC would air the political talk show Meet the Press in the NFL pre-game show's timeslot (12:30 p.m. Eastern Time).
In 1976, Jack Buck left GrandStand in order to return to the booth as a play-by-play announcer, remaining with NBC. He was replaced as co-host by Lee Leonard.