NFL Playoffs 2026: Prime Video Production Team Caps Historic Season With Iconic Bears–Packers Primetime Matchup in Chicago

For its second playoff ever, the team deploys skills honed throughout the season

It has been a historic season for Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football coverage, which averaged 15.33 million viewers and surpassed all previous seasons of TNF in the 20-year history of the NFL package. Now, after its crew and fleet of state-of-the-art mobile units traveled more than 25,000 miles during its 17-week season, Prime Video caps it all off with its second-ever NFL Playoff matchup. And what a matchup it is.

Inside the TNF on Prime broadcast truck during Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football game this season (Photo: Matt Ferris/Amazon)

“It’s absolutely a dream scenario,” says Prime Video Sports Executive Producer Mike Muriano of the Bears–Packers Wild Card Weekend matchup. “Not only is Bears–Packers the league’s oldest rivalry, but it will be on Saturday night in one of America’s true football cities. And the forecast calls for a bit of snow, which would just be icing on the cake from a visual standpoint.

“It’s an honor to get any playoff game,” he continues, “but to be trusted by our partners at the league with such a high-profile matchup like this is really special for the entire team here. We’re not a pound-our-chest kind of company, but everyone should feel proud that the NFL is trusting us with this game. There is a real sense of pride in being bestowed this assignment.”

After working Prime Video’s fourth season of exclusive NFL coverage, Game Creek Video Prime One A, B, C, D, and E units (along with its office trailer) and Prime Two pre are on hand at Soldier Field to cover the game, along with the Prime Two standalone truck, which will again handle TNF’s traveling pre/postgame and halftime efforts. The mobile units and a crew of more than 200 traveled to Chicago after the league revealed the Wild Card Weekend broadcast on Sunday night.

“That last Sunday [of the regular season] has become like Christmas Eve for us in terms of what game we are going to get and what time slot we are going to get,” says Muriano. “When Sunday night rolled around and we learned in real time, with the rest of America, that we were getting Bears and Packers on Saturday night, it was definitely a ‘wow’ moment.”

In addition, Prime has edit, replay, Tagboard, research, and logger positions supporting the game remotely, with additional edit and replay support coming from Denver and Florida. The Prime Vision alternative presentation is also produced remotely from Prime Video’s studio in Culver City, CA.

Prime Video will roll out its full studio show at Soldier Field as it does each week for Thursday Night Football.

Since Prime Video already deploys one of the largest weekly shows in the industry, Muriano says the camera complement, audio coverage, and onsite facilities will stay largely the same. As has been the case all season, Saturday’s game will be produced in native 1080p HDR with more than 40 cameras, and 70 microphones will be deployed throughout Soldier Field to create the Dolby Surround audio mix.

“We lovingly refer to ourselves as the traveling circus since we have this very high-end show with a huge team and onsite production for 17 weeks a year,” says Muriano. “We’re training that production muscle all year long, and, even though it sounds cliché, we treat every game like a playoff matchup. That said, we recognize that this is a primetime playoff game so we’re finding small ways to take what we’re already doing and enhance it.”

Prime continues to increase its complement of high-frame-rate cameras for TNF, with 28 systems now capable of super-slo-mo for Saturday’s game production. Nine cameras are configured for SMT virtual graphics, and three are outfitted for augmented-reality graphics. Prime will also once again have both high and low SkyCam systems.

In addition to the full arsenal of Sony cameras that rolls with Prime One and Prime Two, NEP Specialty Capture is providing two sideline HDC-4800 4K/HFR robos (with Fuji 20-120X lenses); two HDC-4800 4K/HFR goal-line robos (with Fuji 85-300mm lenses); three HDC-4500 4K Hawk-Eye replay servers for goal-line, sideline, and 4K SkyCam playback. Also deployed will be two goalpost robos (PeePod 500’s with truck-supplied cameras and lenses and a pair of Panasonic AWUE150 PTZ cameras in the hallway and locker rooms.

“Each camera has been chosen for a specific storytelling or technical need, whether it’s capturing emotion, speed, or precision,” says Muriano. “We’re looking at how we can graphically enhance some things and where we can bring in some other creative storytelling elements — both on game coverage and on pregame, halftime, and postgame coverage.”

As is standard each week for TNF, host Charissa Thompson and analysts Tony Gonzalez, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Andrew Whitworth, and Richard Sherman will be onsite, providing commentary and showcasing the atmosphere at Soldier Field prior to kickoff. In addition, 40 years after Chicago’s last Super Bowl win, Bears legend Mike Singletary will highlight the opportunity in front of this year’s team.

“Since we’re the primetime game,” says Muriano, “we have only a 30-minute show, which is a smaller window than we’re used to. It will be a challenge to not only preview the game but also highlight the history of this rivalry and showcase the city of Chicago. We want to tap into the football-loving culture there. We will also have a live shot starting in pregame and all the way through the night at a Packers bar in Chicago.”

Personnel-wise, Muriano notes the support and leadership his team gets from VP/Global Head of Sports Jay Marine and VP, Global Live Sports Production, Jared Stacy. Senior Coordinating Producer Spoon Daftary serves as ringmaster of the Prime Video traveling circus each week. The game-production team is led by Producer Mark “T-Man” Teitelman and Director Pierre Moosa. Prime Video’s onsite tech teams are led by Bjorn Estlund and Brett Fifield, with Remote Tech Managers Jess Fogarty, Kory Scudder, Bill Kavis, and Tom Corigliano.

“Proud doesn’t begin to describe the feeling I have going into this weekend,” says Muriano. “Our whole team — from our tech crew to operations to engineering — and all of our partners continue to raise the bar in terms of what is possible. Now we need to finish the season strong, and we have a great canvas to do that with in the Packers–Bears matchup. We put ourselves in a great position, and, as Bill Parcells said all those years ago, ‘this is why you lift all those weights.’ It’s our chance to shine.”