If TV were a living room, these are the guys America is still letting in. Which, in 2026, is saying something.
Since Fox NFL Sunday began 32 years ago, the way we watch television — and live our lives — has dramatically changed.
In the post-pandemic era, we stream on demand, scroll on our phones, argue in the comments section. And somewhere along the way, appointment television almost became obsolete. Except for Sunday football.
Because on Sundays, something unusual still happens with the modern American audience — we show up. We show up for the ritual: football, six familiar faces, a conversation happening IRL and chemistry you can’t manufacture.
Fox NFL Sunday has had a remarkable run as America’s No. 1 and most-watched NFL pregame show for 33 consecutive seasons, collecting five Sports Emmy Awards and still maintaining its supremacy thanks to hosts and analysts Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Curt Menefee, Michael Strahan, Jay Glazer and Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski.
Despite the championships, Hall of Fame careers, celebrity and decades of notoriety among them, the premise remains almost ridiculously simple.
They are a group of guys talking football, and maybe that’s exactly why it works.
Because even though technology has transformed television, it hasn’t changed our desire to belong to something: A team, a community and a conversation. And if we can’t be in the stadium, we can still be part of it from the living room. If there is anything Fox NFL Sunday has taught us, it’s that familiarity matters. And so does showing up every week for a little bit of good trouble.
Television will keep changing, and the way we watch will change, too. But here’s hoping that the people who draw us in, make us laugh and remind us what it means to keep it real will continue showing up, just as we have shown up for them.
Any given Sunday.
If Terry Bradshaw is the class clown, then Howie Long is the straight-A student sitting beside him.
One is spontaneous, theatrical and always comfortable making himself the punchline. The other is analytical, buttoned-up and deliberate.
Together, they are the original odd couple of Fox NFL Sunday.
“I honestly never gave it a thought because we had stability,” Bradshaw says of the show’s incredible run. “It never crossed my mind we wouldn’t do the show.”
Now 78, he sees the staying power as something bigger than the game. “I think a lot of our viewers’ parents watched the show and they are watching now — it’s a ritual. I guess we grew on ’em and were a habit hard to break.”
The chemistry, however, wasn’t instant.
When Long auditioned for the show in 1993, he arrived over-prepared, with stacks of paper and days of research. He assumed the producers wanted anotherpolished sports broadcaster.
Instead, executive David Hill envisioned something closer to a group of guys relaxing on a sofa, talking football.
“Terry has done a good job of lightening me up,” Long says. During the audition, Bradshaw gave him some advice: “Lose the papers, man. Let’s just you and me talk.”
It was the beginning of a partnership built on balance and respect.
“Howie and I work because we are opposites, but we worked on our relationship,” Bradshaw says. “Howie and I didn’t start off on the same page, but we worked on getting to know one another and we developed a love and trust brothers have.”
Bradshaw explains that neither of them wants to be the other. “We both knew we were different and that can spell trouble, but we were both smart enough to know we are going to be together a long time.”
For Long, that understanding is the foundation of the show’s success. He says the cast respects one another’s boundaries and knows where each person draws the line. “It’s a lot like a marriage. If you are going to be successful, then you have to work at it. And don’t lift yourself up at someone else’s expense.”
The result is a rare kind of on-screen chemistry — one that can’t be scripted for an instant viral moment.
“This chemistry will never happen again,” Long says. “It’s personalities, and things start at the top.”
“We have big egos, obviously, but we park ’em,” Bradshaw says. “We’re irreverent, and that makes good TV. We are entertainment. And it’s worked. It’s paid off.”
Long calls it “catching lightning in a bottle.” He says he has never been told what to say on the show, and producer Bill Richards still gives the guys room to be themselves.
Bradshaw admits he still marvels when the team learns it has finished another season at the top. He notes, “I keep thinking I am going to go there week one and we are going to get a call and someone [will] say they caught us [not measuring up].”
Long says of their enduring success, “It’s always a pleasant surprise on that Tuesday or Wednesday we find out we are No. 1. It’s like, ‘Wow, can you believe it?’ Thirty-three years!”
Michael Strahan knows a thing or two about teamwork. As a Pro Football Hall of Famer, he made the jump from the NFL to television 18 years ago when he first joined the show.
Strahan credits Fox NFL Sunday with teaching him lessons that have carried through every chapter of his career: know your role and trust your teammates.
“I think the one thing it taught me is collaboration; it taught me to listen, it taught me that it takes a team to make a show great and you have to know your role,” he says. “And being fast on your feet. You don’t know what the other person is going to say, so you have to react, listen and be present and be a good teammate. These are things that have helped in my entire career.”
Their shared experience in football gives them a common language of sportsmanship even in the studio.
“If the team wins, then we all win,” he says.
For Strahan, live sports remain one of the few things capable of bringing people together in an increasingly scattered media landscape.
He admits he enjoys sparring with people who have a different opinion — especially when he is all in on the New York Giants, even among friends who root for the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles.
“You can’t beat live sports,” he says. “Everyone wants to be in the moment and completely unplug from everything else that is going on in the world that keeps us fragmented and do something that brings us together.
When Rob Gronkowski joined Fox NFL Sunday, he walked into a room of legends.
For the former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers tight end, the experience felt familiar; he was a rookie again, learning from the best and earning his place on the team.
“At first I was intimidated, but like anything, it’s great to be around the best and learn from the best,” he says. “I had to gain their respect being the newbie. It was just like being a rookie in the NFL. I was honored to be on set with them and still am.”
The transition from the field to the studio, however, required a different kind of discipline.
As a player, Gronkowski could communicate through his instincts and physical play, but on television, he had to find his voice.
“The hardest part has been to explain my perspective,” he says. “As a football player, I was able to do it physically. But going into the booth and explaining what I see, on the defensive side of the ball or offensive side, was challenging … especially knowing I am doing it on the most premier show and the standard and bar is set so high.”
More than anything, Gronkowski approaches the job with the mindset of humility. He isn’t looking to reinvent the wheel.
“The show has been the show for 30-plus years, and for myself, I don’t make the calls. I show up, and the show doesn’t need to be changed. Whatever the producer brings to the table, I just want to execute.”
When asked where he sees himself in 20 years, he doesn’t pretend to know what television will look like. He knows only that he wants to stay connected to football and make the most of the opportunity in front of him.
“I try to be in the moment and worry about the present,” he says. “I really love the position I am in now. I enjoy it. It’s an honorable experience.”
He admires Long’s ability to break down the game, Bradshaw’s gift for making him comfortable enough to be himself, and Strahan’s professionalism and quick wit.
“I have so much more to learn and room for growth,” he says. “They are helping me grow on a weekly basis.”
Every great living room needs someone who knows when to keep the conversation moving.
For 19 years, Curt Menefee has played that role on Fox NFL Sunday, steering the A-team without ever making the show about himself.
“I am not trying to be a martyr,” he says. Menefee understands why viewers tune in. “Gronk is going into the Hall of Fame, everyone else is in the Hall of Fame, so those are the voices and minds that they want to tap into. I knew that from day one, and I respect it. It’s never been about me.”
Menefee points to the “tall poppy syndrome” he sees on other shows, where personalities compete for airtime and argue over one another. On Fox NFL Sunday, he says, there is no need to feed anyone’s ego.
“Chemistry,” Menefee says when asked about the secret to the show’s success. “It was all about chemistry from day one.” The pregame show, he explains, isn’t really about the X’s and O’s. It’s about the people delivering the information. Viewers may not remember a breakdown of a play, but they remember Bradshaw doing something funny, Strahan busting someone’s chops or a moment only their dynamic can produce.
It’s a connection that has been nurtured over time.
The cast takes an annual boys’ trip, and Menefee says the camaraderie viewers see on Sunday is the same one they share in their own time — minus “the adult beverages and swear words.”
According to Menefee, roughly 70 percent of the show is ad-libbed, and nine out of 10 things discussed in rehearsal never make it to air.
He remembers Strahan’s first week, when, after rehearsing the segment one way, Strahan watched the conversation take on a life of its own and asked, “Am I being punked?”
It’s that unpredictability that keeps the show feeling alive.
In a world where everyone is racing to break the next story, Jay Glazer has learned that being first isn’t as important as being accurate.
A veteran NFL insider with more than three decades in the business, Glazer built his reputation on breaking sports news. Today, he says, the real challenge is delivering something audiences can trust.
“When you broke something back then and put it on social media, it meant you broke the story,” he says. “But now someone might quote your original tweet and then, for the second one, only mention you and use it to advance the story.”
Glazer recalls breaking the story not too long ago that Aaron Rodgers had flown to New Jersey to meet with the New York Jets. His instincts, paired with his exclusive reporting, led him to conclude that Rodgers would not be returning to the Green Bay Packers after 17 seasons on the team.
But there is a line he refuses to cross in pursuit of a story. “I like to get three independent sources confirming something before I run with it,” he says. “I would rather lose a story than the credibility.”
That discipline comes with its own pressures. After years of living in the fast-moving world of breaking news and social media, Glazer has intentionally stepped back from the constant noise — even hiring people to manage his accounts so he doesn’t have to read every message or reaction. Protecting his emotional well-being and mental health, he says, has become part of his approach to being a public person.
Off camera, however, the competitive instincts give way to something much more personal. Glazer describes the Fox NFL Sunday cast as the “ funnest locker room on the planet” — a group that will bust each other’s chops at any given opportunity.
“What we do on TV is real,” he says. “We don’t really rehearse; we want to make sure our reactions are real.”
The guys vacation together, take trips, meet in the offseason and show up for one another’s biggest life moments. Glazer says they’ve been best men at one another’s weddings, become godfathers to one another’s children and built a bond that will last a lifetime.
“We are family,” he says. “We are the first family of football.”
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