NFL Network Exclusive Game Series


NFL Network Exclusive Game Series is the branding currently used for broadcasts of National Football League games aired by NFL Network. Prior to the 2022 NFL season, the NFL Network Special branding was only used on Thursday Night Football '' games not played on Thursdays; as of 2022, this arrangement has included at least one NFL London Game played in a Sunday morning window, and one or more late-season games on Saturdays.
In 2009, after having briefly used Saturday Night Football to brand the games, all games in the package were branded as a "special edition" of Thursday Night Football or a variant thereof, regardless of the day on which the game aired. By 2017, the schedule-agnostic branding NFL Network Special was introduced. The branding NFL Christmas Special was also used for Christmas Day games in the TNF package, some of which having fallen into this segment of the package.
In the 2022 season, Thursday Night Football moved exclusively to Amazon Prime Video. NFL Network will still carry a package of exclusive games, consisting mainly of international games and late-season Saturday games, with the Thursday Night Football-centric branding having been dropped and replaced by individual brands for each game.
As with all league games carried by a cable network or streaming provider, each game is syndicated to a local broadcast station in the markets of the two teams, per NFL broadcast rules.

Background

Prior to 2017

NFL Network debuted Thursday Night Football on November 23, 2006, with the Kansas City Chiefs handing the visiting Denver Broncos a 19–10 Thanksgiving defeat. As part of this package, three games aired on Saturday nights, which were accordingly branded as Saturday Night Football, with the package as a whole being promoted as the Run to the Playoffs. This format carried over to the 2007 season. Saturday games can only occur in the final weeks of the season, as the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, requires blackouts of professional football games—held on Friday evenings or Saturdays from mid-September through mid-December—on television stations within of the venue of a college or high school football game.
Starting in 2008, NFL Network eliminated all but one of the Saturday night games and started their Thursday night package three weeks earlier. In the following season, all references to Saturday Night Football were dropped, with the entire package now being branded as Thursday Night Football, and non-Thursday games being referred to as a "special edition" of Thursday Night Football.
On October 6, 2013, NFL Network aired a Sunday prime time game featuring the San Diego Chargers at the Oakland Raiders with a rare 8:35 p.m. PT kickoff. The game had been rescheduled, since the Oakland Coliseum needed time to be converted back to its football configuration after an Oakland Athletics Division Series game the previous night. CBS commentators Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts remained assigned to the game.
Beginning in 2014, the Thursday Night Football package was sub-licensed to one or more of the NFL's broadcast partners, who produced all games on behalf of NFL Network, and could simulcast selected games in the package on broadcast television. These, by extension, included the non-Thursday games of the package, which were in turn produced by CBS. These games are intended to satisfy NFL Network's carriage agreements, which require that a quota of exclusive games be broadcast by the channel each season, while still allowing some of the games to be simulcast on network television as well.
In 2014, CBS used the branding Thursday Night Football: Saturday Edition for these games—a branding scheme that was especially considered a misnomer when used for a game aired on a Saturday afternoon. By 2016, the games had begun to carry the on-air branding Thursday Night Special, with Christmas Day games assigned to the Thursday Night Football package accordingly using the branding NFL Christmas Special.

2017–2021

By the 2017 season, the branding NFL Network Special was adopted for non-Thursday TNF games exclusive to NFL Network. The games continued to have similar productions to games aired under the Thursday Night Football title, but with their on-air graphics only containing NFL Network branding.
Beginning in 2018, most NFL Network Special games became Fox productions as part of its new rights to Thursday Night Football. An exception was an NFL London Game on October 10, 2021, which was instead produced by CBS.

2022–present

holds rights to Thursday Night Football beginning in the 2022 NFL season. There will still be a package of exclusive games on NFL Network, generally consisting of international games airing at 9:30 a.m. ET, and late-season Saturday games. NFL Network now markets the broadcasts as its "exclusive game series", branding the late-season Saturday games with distinct titles such as Saturday Showdown, and the Holiday Classic. Production of the games was taken back in-house, and a new graphics package by Two Fresh Creative replaced the Thursday Night Football-centric branding used prior.
In Week 16 of 2023, NFL Network added a Sunday night game on Christmas Eve in lieu of usual broadcaster NBC, due to NBC producing a Peacock-exclusive game later that same day.

Coverage

Announcers

Play-by-play

  • Greg Gumbel
  • Mike Tirico
  • Rich Eisen
  • Curt Menefee
  • Kevin Burkhardt
  • Adam Amin
  • Joe Davis
  • Kevin Kugler
  • Noah Eagle
  • Chris Rose
  • Kevin Harlan
  • Kenny Albert

    Color

  • Trent Green
  • Kurt Warner
  • Michael Irvin
  • Steve Mariucci
  • Nate Burleson
  • Joe Thomas
  • Charles Davis
  • Mark Schlereth
  • Adam Archuleta
  • Greg Olsen
  • Mark Sanchez
  • Jason McCourty
  • Dan Orlovsky
  • Ross Tucker
  • Jonathan Vilma

    Reporters

  • Jamie Erdahl
  • Heather Cox
  • Melissa Stark
  • Peter Schrager
  • Pam Oliver
  • Lindsay Czarniak
  • A.J. Ross
  • Steve Wyche
  • Laura Okmin
  • Stacey Dales
  • Sara Walsh
  • Tom Pelissero
  • Allison Williams
  • Melanie Collins
  • James Palmer
  • Sherree Burruss
  • Kristina Pink

    Game results