
NFL Playoffs 2022: ESPN Prepares To Make Monday Night History on NFL's Super Wild Card Weekend MNF crew adds extra resources for isolation shots of star players like Rams' Aaron Donald By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Friday, January 14, 2022 - 10:24 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The Los Angeles Rams are the only team in the NFL that make Monday Night Football director Jimmy Platt uncomfortable. So, as ESPN looks to make history with the first Monday-night playoff game in the history of the NFL, it's somewhat morbidly fitting that L.A.'s SoFi Stadium is the destination for a Wild Card matchup between those Rams and the Arizona Cardinals (8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN App).
For the director of live football coverage, pace of play is a huge factor in establishing a rhythm for calling camera shots throughout the broadcast. The Rams and their eccentric head coach Sean McVey pose a rather significant disruption in that process.
ESPN caps off the NFL's Wild Card Weekend with a production of Cardinals-Rams in Los Angeles on Monday night. (Photo by Scott Clarke / ESPN Images)
[The Rams] mix tempo well and do a lot of interesting things, says Platt, who is wrapping his third season at the front bench of the iconic sports-TV franchise. Sometimes, when they break the huddle, they sprint to the line and snap it; [other times,] they'll sprint to the line and check into another play. With them, you have to be really diligent when you are doing replays, how many replays you are doing, and trying to get out of those replays and not miss a snap. The Rams make me very uncomfortable.
Any game that I've ever done with them, they've had that mixed-tempo feel, he continues. We've talked about it as a production team, and we know we just have to be smart and do a little bit less. If we get one less look [at a replay] but we're out of it by the time they break the huddle, that's a win and where we should be.
Expanding Resources for Isos ESPN has rolled out NEP's EN1 (A, B, C, D, and E units) in the truck compound and is adding some extra resources for this production on top of the already robust plan it rolls out on a week-to-week basis. There will be 41 cameras on this show in L.A., plus an additional 16 lenses inside a total of 10 PylonCams, positioned at each corner of both end zones and at the line-to-gain point along the near sideline.
The added resources are implemented for an emphasis on isolation coverage. That means more cameras, connectivity, and staffing (eight more people traveling to site) to ensure better lock-off shots of star players like Rams' defensive tackle Aaron Donald. According to Platt, the production team spent significant time discussing Donald - arguably the best defensive player in the league - on a call laying out the plan for iso shots. Platt is hopeful that the added resources allow the team to provide a more comprehensive look at the impact a player of Donald's caliber has on the game.
On top of that, ESPN is also adding locked-off Sony 4800's pointing directly down each goal line for a clear view of any tight scoring play in a high-stakes postseason game.
The crew is also bringing back its on-the-field RF shallow-depth-of-field camera (a Sony FX-9 on an ARRI Trinity camera-stabilization system) as well as a Fujinon SK 20 35 full-sensor Cinema Box lens on a full-sensor Sony HDC-4800 positioned at the higher post of a dual sideline-cart camera. That camera is used to acquire a shallow-depth-of-field effect on shots from a different angle than on the field and is typically fixed on the quarterback. The MNF crew used this camera/lens combo four other times this season.
Milestone Moment in MNF History It's difficult to ignore the historical significance of this night. This isn't the first time ESPN has carried an NFL playoff game (that was in 2015), but, for Monday Night Football, one of the great series in television history, to cap a weekend of the NFL postseason for the first time in its 52-year history is a noteworthy event.
That fact is not lost on Platt, who is just the sixth director in the history of the franchise.
It's special, he says. Every night when I go to work on a Monday Night, I feel that it's special to be in the position that I'm in. To see such a great program evolve and take the next step in doing a playoff game makes it even more special. I'm humbled by it, and it's remarkable to think that we are a part of such a great legacy.
Stay tuned to sportsvideo.org for more of SVG's NFL Playoffs 2022 coverage in the coming days.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
At BroadcastAsia 2026, Interra Systems will demonstrate its latest innovations in automated quality control (QC), real-time monitoring, and captioning. The comp...
07/05/2026
At this year's Broadcast Asia, PlayBox Neo is set to unveil recent innovations across its PlayBox Neo Suite and integrated range of broadcast media solution...
07/05/2026
Strategic three-year partnership marks delivery phase of BFBS' next-generation media vision
Media organisation and military charity BFBS (British Forces Br...
07/05/2026
Amagi, the agentic industry cloud platform for unified broadcast, streaming, and monetization, today announced the availability of its In-Content Ads offering v...
07/05/2026
Lightware Visual Engineering has developed Rack Taurus for rack-based environments such as education and corporate training spaces. It enables clean and simple ...
07/05/2026
Jigsaw24, the UK's leading media equipment supplier and systems integrator, will showcase its expanded end-to-end workflow capabilities at MPTS 2026, signal...
07/05/2026
Ease Live, an Evertz company, today announced that it has been granted a US Patent for its proprietary graphical overlay technology, the foundation for interact...
07/05/2026
Test & measurement innovator Leader Electronics of Europe will present an extensive range of Leader, PHABRIX and LeaderPhabrix test and measurement solutions at...
07/05/2026
At Broadcast Asia 2026 (Stand 5H3 8), LiveU is redefining live production with its most powerful IP-video EcoSystem to date built to help broadcasters and con...
07/05/2026
January 8, 2024
Colorfront (colorfront.com), a leader in high-performance, on-s...
07/05/2026
February 9, 2024
Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning pioneer i...
07/05/2026
March 20, 2024
NAB 2024, Las Vegas - Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-awa...
07/05/2026
April 1, 2025
CINEMACON, APRIL 1, 2025 - Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning developer of high-performance dailies/transcoding/streaming syste...
07/05/2026
June 15, 2025
Colorfront (colorfront.com), an Academy and Emmy Award-winning de...
07/05/2026
June 15, 2025
Colorfront participated in the ICTA Barcelona Cinema Technology Summit on Sunday, June 15, 2025. Held at The Phenomena Experience, the event feat...
07/05/2026
July 1, 2025
Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning developer of high-performance dailies/transcoding/streaming systems for motion pictures, OTT,...
07/05/2026
July 1, 2025
Passion and dedication will take you places. Come with us on a short trip to the heart of India, where Annapurna Studios is living-up to the inspi...
07/05/2026
July 3, 2025
Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning developer of high-performance dailies/transcoding/streaming systems for motion pictures, OTT,...
07/05/2026
September 1, 2025
IBC 2025, Amsterdam - Colorfront (colorfront.com) - the Acade...
07/05/2026
April 17, 2026
LOS ANGELES - April 17, 2026 - Colorfront today announced Colorf...
07/05/2026
April 23, 2026
NAB 2026, Las Vegas - the Academy and Emmy Award-winning develop...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Recreating the 1974 Doctor Who Time Tunnel in After Effects
Graham Quince May 6, 2026
0 Comments
The Time Tunnel from Doctor Who titles is one of th...
07/05/2026
Well known Irish faces pushed to the edge in new series of
Uncharted with Ray G...
07/05/2026
RT will premiere A Traveller Family, a compelling new documentary exploring the...
07/05/2026
Less typing, more tanking.
Faster logins mean more time in the gaming action - and this week provides GeForce NOW members with a smoother path straight into th...
06/05/2026
Gravity Media Chief RF Communications Engineer Glenn Willems uses Wisycom RF over Fiber and wireless solutions across major cycling events and international mar...
06/05/2026
A Sennheiser Spectera module is now available in Bitfocus Companion and Buttons, enabling direct integration of Spectera with the two software platforms. The mo...
06/05/2026
Ted Turner, the visionary media entrepreneur whose appetite for disruption helpe...
06/05/2026
Peacock is going all-in on the beautiful game - streaming all 104 FIFA World Cup...
06/05/2026
New pricing tiers for vocal/dialogue restoration tool
NoiseWorks Audio's AI-powered vocal and dialogue processing plug-in is now available in three diff...
06/05/2026
Popular mixing & routing software overhauled
Following a recent public beta test, RME have launched the final release version of the powerful mixing and rou...
06/05/2026
New SOS Video Feature
Focusrites ISA C8X is a milestone product that brings together the companys analogue heritage and their expertise in digital audio. Yo...
06/05/2026
Polands Miecznik-class frigates are part of the largest contract in Polish shipbuilding history. (Image Credit: PGZ Stocznia Wojenna)...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/05/2026
Riedel Communications today announced the expansion of its leadership structure as part of a strategic initiative to strengthen both its operational management ...
06/05/2026
For nearly three decades, Veteran Production Sound Mixer and Five-time Emmy Award Winner Dirk Sciarrotta has helped define the sonic identity of the long-runnin...
06/05/2026
ZEISS CinCraft LensCore: Cinema Lens Looks for Compositing
Brie Clayton May 6, 2026
0 Comments
ZEISS announces the launch of CinCraft LensCore, a nove...
06/05/2026
Wisycom Solves Extreme RF Challenges Across Miles of Live Action for Gravity Med...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...