Don Ohlmeyer, then executive producer of NBC's telecasts of National Football League (NFL) games, began considering doing a telecast without announcers early in the 1980 season. He had several reasons. First, he had long believed that the announcers were overly chatty and did not let the game speak for itself when they needed to. Second, NBC, while it primarily covered the games of the NFL's American Football Conference (AFC) teams, generally in smaller markets, was earning ratings almost as good as those of rival CBS, who at the time was broadcasting games involving teams from the National Football Conference (NFC). A game without announcers might well attract enough viewers to put NBC past CBS.