The Names of the Programs

"NFL Play by Play Report" -- The game-of-the-week program in 1965.

"NFL Game of the Week" -- From 1966 to ... well into the 1980s. I can't recall when the "Game of the Week" stopped being a staple of Saturday afternoon fall programming. Around 1987, perhaps? That was the year that the league started televising one regular-season game a week on either TNT or ESPN.

"NFL Action" -- The weekly program from spring 1967 until at least 1969. I've seen this title used in the introductory credits for '68 highlight films.

"This Week in the NFL" -- During the 1968 season, the show with highlights of the previous week's NFL games. Pat Summerall was the host of this 30-minute program. Not all of the previous week's games were featured.

"AFL Hilites" -- NFL Films handled the highlight films for the last two seasons of the AFL. Sabol's crews wore "AFL Films" windbreakers to shoot the games. Original AFL announcer Charlie Jones hosted this 30-minute weekly highlight film, and the end credits said the shows were a production of AFL Films Inc. This same copyright was used for the 1968 AFL Championship Game highlight film, and '69 season highlight films for AFL teams.

"This Week in Pro Football" -- The predecessor to "Inside the NFL" on HBO, and later Showtime. In 1969, with the NFL-AFL merger not yet complete, Charlie Jones (AFL) and Pat Summerall (NFL) were the co-hosts of this hourlong program, which had segments on each of the previous week's games, and often a featurette, such as Rudyard Kipling's "If" read by John Facenda. Beginning in 1970, the co-hosts were Summerall and Tom Brookshier.