Costas won’t cover Super Bowl for NBC

Bob Costas had circled Feb. 4 as his NFL broadcasting send-off, revealing last February Super Bowl LII would be the last one he’d host on NBC.

On Monday, Costas’ name was nowhere to be found on the network’s press release announcing its on-air and studio teams for the game between the Patriots and Eagles. NBC named Dan Patrick and Liam McHugh hosts of the Super Bowl pregame show, which also will include “Football Night in America” mainstays Tony Dungy, Rodney Harrison, Mike Florio and Chris Simms.

The scheduling decision comes as a surprise after Costas, NBC’s prime-time host for every Olympics on the network since 1992, conceded a year ago he was turning Olympics duties over to Mike Tirico but had one more Super Bowl in him before assuming a lesser role with NBC. The 65-yearold has hosted six Super Bowls throughout his career.

“I’ve been lucky to have such a long and enjoyable run,” Costas told USA Today at the time. “So I just thought, better to leave before they ask me to leave.”

That development was nine months before Costas had some scathing words for the prevalence of head injuries in football during a roundtable discussion in November.

While NBC and Costas cited Patrick and McHugh’s chemistry as reason for the personnel choices, the timing and severity of Costas’ football comments raise suspicion around the network’s decision.

“Dan and Liam have served as hosts for our NFL pregame/studio shows on Sunday nights and Thurs- day nights, respectively, throughout the season and will continue on Super Bowl Sunday,” NBC said in a statement.

“Dan and Liam have done the job hosting NBC’s NFL coverage all season. It wouldn’t be right for me to parachute in and do the Super Bowl,” Costas said.

Costas sounded like he wanted to be far from football at the University of Maryland event two months ago, at which a number of high-profile journalists debated a wide range of sports issues.

“The reality is that this game destroys people’s brains,” Costas said during the discussion. “The cracks in the foundation are there. The day-to-day issues, as serious as they may be, they may come and go. But you cannot change the nature of the game.”