Thursday Night Football

Now that CBS and NFL Network will be teaming up for Thursday Night Football, we have our first glimpse of the cooperation between the two networks.

Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch reports that CBS’ James Brown and Bill Cowher will form a new studio team with NFL Network’s Deion Sanders for the Thursday Night Football pregame show. They’ll appear before all games regardless of network. The first half of the Thursday Night Football schedule between Weeks 2 and 8 will air on CBS while the second half from Weeks 9 through 12 and Weeks 14 through 16 will be on NFL Network. The final Week 16 games, a Saturday doubleheader, will have a 4:30 p.m. ET start on NFL Network and an 8 p.m. ET contest on CBS.

Deitsch says Brown, Cowher and Sanders will be seen on the pregame show at 7:30 p.m. ET leading up to the kickoff at 8:25 p.m. ET. There’s likely to be an NFL Network pregame show starting at 6 p.m. as well as a postgame show.

Unless Rich Eisen gets a role on the NFLN pregame show before the actual TNF pregame, it appears viewers won’t be seeing him on this package. Eisen has been the host of the Thursday night games traveling to each site since NFL Network began airing the package in 2007.

Neither CBS nor NFL Network have confirmed the new panel.

CBS will produce the game broadcasts throughout the season and will have Jim Nantz, Phil Simms and Tracy Wolfson assigned to the entire season.

[SI.com]

About Ken Fang

Ken has been covering the sports media in earnest at his own site, Fang's Bites since May 2007 and at Awful Announcing since March 2013.

He provides a unique perspective having been an award-winning radio news reporter in Providence and having worked in local television.

Fang celebrates the four Boston Red Sox World Championships in the 21st Century, but continues to be a long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan.