Producer Fred Gaudelli and director Drew Esocoff of "NBC Sunday Night Football" have been working together with primetime football programing since 2001. They were first a producer/director team on ABC's "Monday Night Football" before moving over to handle the Sunday night telecast on NBC.

 

Gaudelli and Esocoff started their network career's together in 1984 at ESPN, where they both covered boxing, college basketball and college football before being named the "Monday Night Football" duo in 2001.

 

With "NBC Sunday Night Football" in town, they are just as excited as the Redskins and Cowboys to get things going with this week's telecast. Speaking to Gaudelli, he gave me a feel for the behind the scenes of "NBC Sunday Night Football."

 

Gaudelli on the preproduction part one » We will get into town on Friday this week and go straight over to Redskins Park, where we will watch practice and talk to the players and coaches. Friday evening, we will do a one-on-one conversation with Mike Shanahan as well as some of the other coaches and our team of Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth, Andrea Kremer, Drew and I. Bob Costas will do an interview with Donovan McNabb that will air on our "Football Night in America" show. Saturday, the Cowboys will get to town and we will then meet with Wade Phillips and his coaches and players. Bob will do an interview with Tony Romo for our pregame show. Then we will breakdown tape of both teams and on Sunday we will have both a camera rehearsal and a walk through with all the gang.

 

Gaudelli on what happens during the telecast » I take care of the talking to the talent and handling what replays we show the viewers. Drew handles the game coverage and the look of the telecast. Basically, we have me on the editorial side with the broadcasters and you have Drew giving everyone the visual content that you see during the game. It is partnership that has worked well for us for nine years and we could not ask for a better team of broadcasters or technical crew. I really thought that ABC's "Monday Night Football" was special and it really was, but with the flex schedule and the games we now can televise, we could not have a better deal than "NBC Sunday Night Football."