Chatting with
Tafoya: NBC’s sideline reporter discusses how she handles her role on ‘Sunday Night Football’ amid a changing media landscape.
Michele Tafoya spent the offseason following her 10th season as sideline reporter for NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” in Tokyo for the Summer Olympics in 2021.
Tafoya is back stateside and getting ready to tackle another NFL season, one that should be more normal than that of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic altered many aspects of football, journalism and the sports world in general. A longtime figure on NFL sidelines across the country, she has worked more than 250 prime-time NFL broadcasts and won the Sports Emmy for Outstanding Sports Personality – Sports Reporter four times across 10 years.
Tafoya, 56, chatted with USA TODAY Sports about the changing sports media industry, working on “SNF” and covering the NFL during a pandemic.
(Note: This interview has been edited for space and clarity.)
What has the transition been like from Olympic coverage back to your “Sunday Night Football” routine?
The first thing was getting back on this clock here in the United States because of the time change. It took me a while to get over the jet lag in Tokyo, and then coming back you gotta do it all over again and it’s been a little exhausting just trying to figure out. It really messes you up, but I think I’m there now, so that’s a good thing. As far as sort of getting ready for football, that’s almost a never-ending part of my life.
What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in the sports media industry throughout your career?
I think just now the number of platforms that you can find content on. People don’t just watch TV anymore, you know? But the beauty of “Sunday Night Football” is that it is this great, live event that people do want to sit down and just watch or just have on from beginning to end, and it’s such a privilege to be a part of that because in so many other ways we get our information differently now than we have.
How has the shift to streaming culture impacted your job as a sideline reporter?
You compete with it to a certain extent, but you also just understand that this role is unique and it kind of makes it more special for me, frankly. We’re gonna produce the heck out of (each game), meaning – I don’t mean to sound like we’re overproducing a game – we are going to show you this game the way that only “Sunday Night Football” can. We’re so fortunate. We have an amazing technical crew, an amazing production crew, to me, the best announcers ever in Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth, and that is what makes us unique. It is still “Sunday Night Football.” There’s a reason it’s the top-rated show in prime time year after year and continues to win the awards that it does. It’s because it’s produced with such care. It’s not just another platform. It’s special, unique, top-notch, first-rate at everything that it tries to do, and so there’s a lot to live up to there and there’s a lot of work to be done constantly and we raise the bar for ourselves every single day.
What does your typical game-day preparation look like?
When I’m flying home on Monday morning from that Sunday night’s game, I’m already working. That Monday morning I’m starting to look at film of the next two teams that I’ve got the following week. It’s seamless. It’s one to the next. There really isn’t much of a break. I try to give myself some time to sort of recover because we all need that, but it really is just starting all over again. There’s a lot that I don’t like to say publicly about what I do because I take some pride in doing it my own way, so I keep it to myself. You know, it’s watching film, talking to my producer. It’s developing storylines for the coming week. It’s monitoring all the news coming out of each team. It’s just not leaving any stone unturned. It is a high volume of work. Some of it is really tedious, but it has to be done because you wanna be that well prepared. You wanna feel that good about your preparation that you can just go on the air and let it rip.
What were the challenges of being a sideline reporter and covering the NFL in general during the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic?
You were a sideline reporter who was confined to the first row of seats in the stands. You had to do the same job from a different spot, but it was one of those where you just had to deal. And we did. And we made the most of it. In some cases, it was advantageous because being up higher – I’m talking about the level of height from the ground – sometimes offered me a different vantage point and I could see things that I couldn’t normally see when I was stuck behind a bunch of 300-pound bodies. Some places it was a little eerie because it was empty and you’re looking around and it was just kind of strange. Some places it didn’t seem quite as eerie. I can’t really explain why some places were and some places weren’t. That part of it was really strange. You got used to it, and you just kind of put your head down and did the job, but it was definitely different.
Which matchups and storylines are you most excited to cover with “Sunday Night Football” this season?
Definitely Tom Brady going back to New England and facing his old team (Oct. 3). I think that is circled on everyone’s calendar for so many obvious reasons. When this is one that everyone’s gonna wanna watch, you’re fired up to be a part of it. Our schedule this year might be the best one that I’ve seen for “Sunday Night Football” since I’ve been there (2011), and that’s saying a lot. It’s just got some great matchups. There are just so many exciting players. I always love covering Kansas City, Patrick Mahomes. Always love covering Green Bay with Aaron (Rodgers). And to have Dak Prescott back with Dallas, healthy now, I’m knocking on wood that I didn’t just jinx him. There are just a million great storylines, and then the season starts and some of those storylines change dramatically and some of them disappoint and some of them exceed expectations. It’s just phenomenal.