For two decades, ‘NFL PrimeTime’ changed how we watched the game

This offseason, Shutdown Corner will travel down memory lane with a series of stories presenting some interesting and sometimes forgotten stories from the NFL’s past. Join us as we relive some of the greatest and craziest moments in the sport’s history.

If I was so inclined, within a few minutes I could be watching the entire game broadcast of a 2013 Jacksonville Jaguars-Tennessee Titans game on NFL Game Pass. No commercials.

Before 1987, there was no way to get games or even game highlights on demand. You could maybe catch a play here or there on the local news at night, or you’d find the scores in the newspaper the next day. There’s a reason Howard Cosell’s highlights on “Monday Night Football” were a phenomenon. Games took place all over the NFL on Sunday, and we were still clamoring to see a few plays from the key games on Monday night.

This is why, for a generation of football fans, “NFL PrimeTime” on ESPN was such an important show. I’m not sure how much credit you can give a weekly highlights show for the monumental success of the NFL now, but I am sure a large group of diehard fans in their 30s, 40s and beyond will tell you they watched that show every week without fail.

(YouTube.com screen shot) There wasn’t even “Sunday Night Football” before 1987. When Pat Summerall and John Madden signed off from RFK Stadium and told you “Murder, She Wrote” was up next, that was it for the day. ESPN got the rights to “Sunday Night Football” in 1987, and during the negotiations former ESPN president and CEO Steve Bornstein also asked then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle to lift the traditional limit on how many minutes of highlights could be shown.

“He agreed, and so now we would have a great highlight show on Sunday evening before our game that night,” Bornstein said in “Those Guys Have All The Fun,” a book that chronicles ESPN’s history. “Thus was born ‘NFL PrimeTime.'”

A new world opened up.

There was a report last week that Chris Berman was retiring after this NFL season, although that report was refuted by his agent through Richard Sandomir of the New York Times. Whatever you think of Berman now — if you search “Chris Berman” during the annual MLB home run derby, you would guess his approval rating isn’t very high — he and Tom Jackson did a show for 19 seasons that was absolutely amazing.

NFL Sunday Ticket didn’t exist until 1994. Before that you got one game at 1 p.m. Eastern and one game at 4 p.m. Eastern. If you were lucky, and the local team’s game didn’t conflict with the doubleheader on the other network, you got a second game in the early window and you flipped back and forth. When “NFL PrimeTime” debuted there was finally a way to see what happened in the other games. “NFL PrimeTime” did a great job telling the stories of each game through extended highlights, not just the key touchdowns but the important third-down conversions that sealed a win in the final minute, or some strategic element that unfolded during the game. The music was tremendous. Back then, Berman’s catchphrases were an endearing part of the show. He and Jackson were tremendous together (as were the other co-hosts, like Pete Axthelm, in the early days of the show). It clicked. Before “Sunday Night Football” kicked off, everyone watched “NFL PrimeTime.”

ESPN didn’t ask for it to end, though as it turned out, it ended at the right time. When “Sunday Night Football” moved over to NBC, NBC secured the pregame highlights show as part of negotiations. “NFL PrimeTime” ended after the 2005 season. I shouldn’t have been sentimental about a NFL highlights show ending, but I was.

ESPN still put out a show called “NFL PrimeTime,” but it was a different format on Mondays. Berman and Jackson still did highlights on “SportsCenter,” but it wasn’t the same. NBC’s highlights show is well done but it’s not appointment viewing; it’s just something to put on before the Sunday night game starts. NFL Network tried doing a highlights show on Sunday nights with Steve Mariucci and Deion Sanders, and it was not good. I couldn’t tell you if it’s still on.

Changes in the world would have made “NFL PrimeTime” obsolete anyway. When a big play happens now, we’re not waiting for the hour-long highlights show before “Sunday Night Football” to see it. There’s a Vine or a GIF posted to Twitter in minutes. The NFL itself posts highlights right away, to Twitter or its own site. Everyone has Sunday Ticket, or tracks the NFL through the tremendous RedZone channel, which shows everything of consequence on an NFL Sunday. By the time NBC starts its highlight show, anyone who has the desire to check out highlights has seen them all already. Even if you were busy during the day, you can see Todd Gurley’s touchdown run on your phone in just a few clicks.

So even if “NFL PrimeTime” had gone on for a third decade, it would have outlived its usefulness. But before we had instant and unlimited access to everything, the show was instrumental in developing an NFL fan base that wanted to see what was going on throughout the entire league, not just in the two or three games NBC and CBS showed on Sundays.

“NFL Primetime” changed the way we watched football.

“Howard Cosell’s halftime highlights (on ‘Monday Night Football’) are revered by people, and they always will be,” Berman told the Houston Chronicle in 2005. “But maybe some day, people will say, you know, that ‘PrimeTime‘show for two decades is how I got my football.”

There can be no doubt about that.