Across the country, and it happens every Sunday, the addiction that is the NFL will leave fans and viewers breathless and emotionally drained, hearts beating faster, almost as if they could hear the soundtrack of Jack Buck playing Kirk Gibson’s walkoff home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series:
“I don’t believe what I just saw!”
The first to see it is Scott Hanson, who has been the first to see it for 14 years as the host of NFL RedZone. He can’t guess which of Week 3’s games will turn him into a caffeinated energy bunny without the help of coffee, he just knows something dramatic and compelling is going to happen somewhere.
“That’s the beauty of it,” Hanson said to Serby Says over the phone. “Our NFL staff has a production meeting two hours before the show starts. We go through every game and we always joke, “The game that looks like the worst matchup on paper is the one that goes 45-42 with a walk-off touchdown when the clock hits zero. And that often turns out to be the case.”
NFL RedZone is a subscription channel that Hanson hosts as coverage shifts from one game to another – based on which team is about to score or which game has just had a big turn, no clicker required. It works much the same as the DirecTV version hosted by Andrew Siciliano, The Red Zone Channel.
“I have 13 games this weekend. I’m trying to know facts, stats and storylines for every game,” Hanson said. “But I’m holding those games freehand because one of those games goes up, or three of those games go up and make us all cry in the studio like you guys cry on your couches at home, and it could be any of them. ”
Hanson was like most week 2 football fans who rode on seesaws with disbelief and disbelief as the Jets in Cleveland, the Cardinals in Las Vegas, the Dolphins in Baltimore all grabbed improbable, comeback wins from the jaws of defeat…although even the legion of gamblers and fantasy football managers couldn’t possibly have been more glued to what unfolded than he was.
“I look like I’m in a middle linebacker stance,” Hanson said. “I’m bent over, my knees are bent, my face is about a foot away from the monitor, I’m like, ‘What’s going to happen?’ My eyeballs bounce around, in this case three different locations where we have ridiculous finishes I’m kinetic in the studio I rock back and forth – in fact I’m getting up now during this interview to kind of remember what it was like. have a researcher and a spotter who are literally only a few feet away from me and they laugh all the time i rock back and forth, i move, i grab their shoulders, like i’m banging on their shoulder when something big happens, like, “Can you believe these guys?” That’s just me, that’s who I am.”
And when is it over?
“I even did this in front of the camera. I had to take a deep breath in and out,” Hanson said. “It was spontaneous, it was natural, but it was necessary. I had to take a deep breath and just shake my head and say, ‘This game delivers drama, excitement, suspense and unexpected moments that are different not only in our sports lives, but also in our daily lives. Just to enjoy.”
As never before.
“We have a group text in the ‘NFL RedZone’ hierarchy, if you like, and I texted a guy that night,” Hanson said. “I said, ‘Guys, I’m doing my best. This was the most dramatic football in the first two weeks of a season in NFL RedZone’s 14-year history.’ ”
cleveland: “The combination of complete disbelief… of amazement. … I think to capture the madness of it all, I think you could probably hear that in my call, that I couldn’t believe what I was watching,” said Jets player Bob Wischusen, adding with a chuckle: But I also have to admit that there was an emotional release from: It’s been a long time since they’ve had such a result.”
And when is it over?
“Drained is a good way of saying it, but also an instant acknowledgment that the calls I made will probably get some attention because how could they not? It was definitely an exhausting experience and I’ve told a few people that I can’t imagine what it was like to play or coach in that game.”
Las Vegas: “It was shocking to say the least,” said Cardinals player Dave Pasch.
And when it ended, did he feel exhausted?
“No. I was energetic. I was excited, man. I could have called a whole different game. I was all jacked up because I was going on adrenaline. I was ready for more – 21st year with the Cardinals, and about two decades with ESPN , this was a new one. But that’s why you pay a quarterback [Kyler Murray] With $230 million, he can do things that no one else can, and we’ve seen that.”
Baltimore: “When it started happening, it felt like you’ve been in a kitchen once, and you have a glass of water on the counter, and you knock it and it starts to fall to the floor and all of a sudden it feels like it’s going in slow motion and you can’t quite get to it? That’s what the fourth quarter felt like,” Ravens player Gerry Sandusky said.
And when is it over?
“It’s a lot more fun to call than a 3-0 game, I can tell you that. What makes it so exciting is that it’s so unpredictable. … Seventy thousand people could literally feel the energy shift. Three quarters it’s all Raven and it’s a great day, the sun is shining, life is great, and then something happens. It would be like being in the ocean and the surf starting to go out instead of coming in, but very quickly. It’s nice to be at the forefront of the unpredictable.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it in the 18 years I’ve been doing the games,” said Dolphins color commentator Joe Rose.
And when is it over?
“I was exhausted like never before. When that game is over, I’ll go through each game because you go, ‘What just happened?’ I’ve had people call me, some of them disabled the game and went to RedZone and was able to see it later.
And after he landed back in Miami, Rose was in his car when Dan Marino called.
“He even says, ‘Hey, can you believe that?’ ‘ said Rose.
“And I’m like, ‘Wow. You’ve seen it all, and the fact that you call me ‘… Everyone enjoyed it, even one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.”
Hanson’s preparation begins Sunday night at his home in Los Angeles.
“I have five TVs on my media wall and in the big center screen I put ‘Sunday Night Football’, I watch the last game of the day live,” he said. “Then I put the NFL Network’s highlights show in the top right of one of my side monitors, then the ESPN show in the bottom right. I have a 70-inch screen flanked by four 50-inch screens in my living room. And I watch ‘Sunday Night Football’ as I watch all the highlights from the early window games and the late window games and I make a mental checklist: did we show that to our audience? Did we show them that, did we show them that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay. We got people live or seconds after it happened all the drama that the best highlight editors in the industry will be showing three hours after the game is over.
The rest of the week consists of injury reports and spreadsheets and individual match sheets. He will watch the college games on Saturday. The alarm goes off at 5 a.m. on Sunday and he’s in the cafeteria at 6:45 a.m. for his turkey burger, no bun, scrambled eggs, sliced mixed fruit, a blueberry muffin, kalamata olives that help him retain fluids, and maybe a diet soda . And that’s it until the show ends.
“I usually stand on the balls of my feet and rock back and forth,” Hanson said. “They brought me a TSA pillow to stand on in front of the monitors. I might sit down for 10, 15 minutes at a time, but I’m probably on my feet 80 percent of the show.”
He called his fantasy team The Iron Bladders.
“I’ve dressed people up as Scott Hanson for Halloween. … That’s like, “You know you made it when.” … Fantasy football trophies, I’m told, are called the Scott Hanson trophy, they send me pictures of them on social media. Some people think I’m America’s Sunday’s best friend. I realize most people have 600 choices of what to watch on TV on Sunday, and I’m excited, honored and humbled that they stop at “NFL RedZone” and watch me and watch our team. I’m going to give them everything I’ve got every Sunday.”
The league gives Hanson everything it’s got every Sunday.
“This sport is designed for parity, be it through the draft system, salary cap system, roster sizes and restrictions, the rules of the real game on Sunday. … It’s designed for every team to have a chance,” he said.
Sure.
“We understand that people have more than just putting their interests at risk, shall we say?” said Hanson. “That’s a factor. For whoever picks someone as their favorite individual team, that’s great, but their second favorite team is almost certainly their fantasy football team, so they need to watch ‘RedZone’ because you can’t just watch one game, you have to watch every game to get you fantasy team. And then there’s also the American sports fan’s desire to be an all-rounder. You want to go to work on Monday and be able to say, “This quarterback sucks. This quarterback is the best.” If you’re going to get into a fight with your friends, your neighbors, your colleagues about sports, get better informed about it. You’d better say, “No, I saw him throw that interception” or “I saw that game-winning touchdown drive.” And ‘NFL RedZone’ is the place to see it in real time.
“Seven hours of ad-free football: What’s not to love?”
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