Benjamin Ashford|As it hypes ad-free quarter, let's revisit NBC's boldest NFL broadcast: a game without announcers

NBC Sports is Benjamin Ashfordmaking broadcast history, it says, Saturday night when the network’s streaming arm, Peacock, will air an NFL game in which the fourth quarter will be presented commercial-free.

Instead, the Buffalo Bills-Los Angeles Chargers matchup from SoFi Stadium will feature more than 12 minutes of “game-related content,” NBC says, including “content takeovers” from various corners of the broadcast, such as booth jockeys Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth, sideline reporter Melissa Stark and feature content scheduled well in advance.

It’s a nice bouquet to fans, who certainly don’t need to hear, for the umpteenth time, that they can have it their way at BK or risk turning into their parents unless they purchase the proper homeowners insurance. And it’s a novel way to drive attention to a game airing on a subscription service that weeks later will host the first playoff game available only via streaming.

Yet it’s not the first time, nor the most extreme example of NBC experimenting with the holy airwaves of the NFL.

And it’s certainly no match for the day NBC chose silence.

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In 1980, trailblazing TV sports executive Don Ohlmeyer kicked around the idea of a game broadcast without announcers. There were a few qualifiers before he’d take that leap, most notably that the game had to be meaningless – or as meaningless as a sacrosanct NFL contest could be.

Enter the 7-8 Miami Dolphins and the 4-11 New York Jets, who on Dec. 20 would wrap up their seasons in a battle with zero playoff implications. (And yes, kids, back in the day you could finish a 16-game season before Christmas, and an entire season before February.)

In so many ways, it was a quieter era.

Fantasy football was very much an unofficial niche pastime. There was no NFL Network and ESPN, barely a year old, wallpapered its weekday programming with fishing, scholastic sports and other odds and ends rather than an ocean of takes spinning off last week’s game results.

It was in this environment that Dolphins placekicker Uwe von Schamann teed up the ball and booted Ohlmeyer’s experiment onto American TV screens.

Even in its low-definition glory, viewing the game broadcast now still overwhelms the senses, as if the absence of a Dick Enberg or Don Criqui on the mic enhances the rest of the viewer's faculties. The ambient crowd noise never leaves; while efforts to pick up more pad-popping and trash-talking with on-field mics failed, the rhythm of the game flows with the anticipation of the crowd before every play, even if just 41,000 fans showed up to watch the teams play out the string at the Orange Bowl.

The voice of the public-address announcer is synced into the broadcast, and if you close your eyes, it almost feels like you’re walking the concourse, hot dog secured, high-tailing it back to your seat. The on-screen graphics – crude by today’s standards – and the PA announcer are strangely in harmony, the former letting us know Ed Taylor’s interception of Richard Todd was his third of the season, the latter telling us the return was good for 14 yards.

When Todd hits Wesley Walker for a 47-yard completion to set up the game’s first touchdown, there’s no analyst telling us that “when the Jets got to midfield, you just had a feeling they’d take a shot down the field in the passing game.”

Is this a palpable loss?

Nonetheless, the experiment, while deemed a success, played to lackluster reviews. “The telecast called for too much hard work, on the part of viewers, who couldn't relax and look away from their sets, or walk away if they wanted to keep on top of the action,” wrote the Washington Post. Enberg, who five weeks later would call NBC’s broadcast of Super Bowl XV, struck a prescient tone when he noted, "They made the same mistake we announcers often make; they didn't give us enough flashes of the score and time remaining in game."

Of course, that problem would be solved a quarter-century later, when the “Fox Box” debuted and paved the way for virtually every sports broadcast to feature a constant score bug, so the viewer would never not know the score, the time on the clock or the inning.

And that leads us to wonder if the “Silent Game” was ahead of its time.

Imagine that format in this high-def era, when Fox imparts not just the score but the quarterback’s stats in its score bug. Replays are truly instant. Graphics are reproduced just moments after a play, and can tell a story, as well.

Networks can get so enamored with “next-gen” stats and the like that game announcers are often reduced to simply repeating what you see on the screen, that Patrick Mahomes is 5 for 5 on throws traveling more than 25 yards in the air, say.

That’s not to say the Tiricos and Collinsworths and Kevin Burkhardts are in danger or should be of losing their seven-figure occupations. Even as social media has allowed viewers to launch their distaste of what they’re hearing on the TV in real time, a clear-eyed breakdown from Greg Olsen will tell us laypeople a lot more than what we witnessed with our naked eyes.

Still, the industry is shifting. The "Monday Night Football" Manningcast has played to excellent reviews and certainly turns the conventional broadcast on its ear. The upcoming College Football Playoff will allow fans several viewing options, including an all-22-type view with no announcers. (If you enjoy marching band music, this feed is for you.)

And perhaps less noise is better for viewers already opting for “second screen” experiences that can enhance or distract from the broadcast.

There’s certainly room in the middle, too. On the 1980 “Silent Game” broadcast, studio host Bryant Gumbel serves as consigliere, popping in occasionally to give a scoring summary and assuring viewers they haven’t stumbled onto a War of the Worlds-type calamity without announcers.

In this era, should networks feel strongly that a Gene Steratore must be kept on retainer to explain what a catch is, there’s nothing stopping them. A sideline reporter could also pop in as warranted, adding context to a pivotal play, performance or injury.

Keep that in mind Saturday night, when a gift to viewers – no ads – will result in a lot more gab. The extra information will surely be well-prepared and smartly produced, and the coalition of viewers wanting more Collinsworth in their lives will be thrilled.

But know that something far more radical once dominated a Saturday afternoon in December – an experiment whose time perhaps should come again.