Article on CBS Producer from BUF-KC Game

[cage]

This was a really good write-up from The Athletic detailing the feelings of Jim Rikhoff the CBS producer of last nights game and why it was so special

https://theathletic.com/3086111/2022/01/24/producing-the-wild-bills-chiefs-finish-a-goodbye-to-john-madden-sean-paytons-future-nfl-playoff-media-thoughts/

 

A few select parts:

 

Drained from a three-hour car ride following a 2.5-hour flight from Kansas City after producing a four-hour broadcast of a classic football game, CBS NFL producer Jim Rikhoff arrived at his Western Connecticut home at 3:30 a.m. on Monday morning and headed to his outdoor deck that overlooks a river. He needed to decompress and clear his mind.

 

“I just sat out there for five minutes and tried to digest everything that had happened,” Rikhoff said.

 

What had happened was Rikhoff produced one of the great NFL games in history, an impossibly dramatic 42-36 overtime win by the Chiefs over the Bills that included Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City driving 44 yards in 13 seconds for a game-tying 49-yard field goal. There were 25 points in the final 1:54, a span that included four lead changes.

 

Rikhoff has been at CBS Sports since 1985. He called Sunday’s game one of the four greatest events he has worked professionally, a list that also includes the AFC Championship Game between the Patriots and Chiefs in January 2019 (New England won 37-31 in overtime) and Tiger Woods winning The Masters in 1997 and 2019. I asked Rikhoff to take me inside the production truck after Josh Allen’s fourth touchdown pass to Gabriel Davis to give Buffalo what looked like the game-winning play.

 

....

 

On the game-winning play in overtime, Rikhoff said the production truck knew it was a touchdown pretty much immediately.

 

“As we were cutting around the whole celebration, I did see Andy Reid with two or three other officials and I could tell it was a semi-serious conversation,” Rieckhoff said. “We had four angles of the catch and it looked pretty good to me. But when I saw Andy Reid, I was thinking, ‘Oh God, let’s not have a bizarre finish.’ We had a great shot of Josh Allen in disbelief. It kind of reminded me of when Aaron Rodgers walked off the field in their game. It was almost like the Packers couldn’t believe what happened. Just stunned. Josh Allen played so great and had a look of disbelief. As Ryan and I are looking at replays, (director) Mike Arnold is cutting live to all those sequences. He’s shooting all the primary players in this movie or play. I think he’s the best NFL director I’ve ever worked with.”

 

After games, members of a production team want to leave the setting as soon as possible. Often, they want a mental break from the experience. But that was not the case for Rikhoff, who spent much of the time after the game answering texts, emails and calls.

 

“I got more texts, emails and more calls than for anything I’ve ever done professionally in my life,” Rikhoff said. “It took me at least two hours to get through them, and I know (Nantz) went through the same thing. People were just so excited about what a great football game it was. When I was on my deck in the middle of the night, it was the first time I could really soak it in and savor what had happened. I just thought for a while in the silence about how it was a really cool thing to be part of. I think it’s arguably the greatest weekend of NFL football ever.”

[JohnnyBuffalo]

Interesting to hear a person with no skin in the game talk about it being emotional.   I found it very emotional and I am still not over it.  
 

On a different personal note…since this is referencing a guy who produced the game…I find myself frustrated with prime time production of nfl games.   Too many shots of non football related stuff.   I want to see the field and what’s going on there!   Not fans.   Not the coaches.  Not the other teams QB when we have the ball or our QB when they have the ball.    Take your collective heads out of your arses and produce a football game.   Not another dumb tv drama!

 

That is all.   I go now into the off-season angry and bitter.  
 

Go Bills!
 

 

[Blainorama5]

That's just awesome.  Great game for television - and the Bills lose.  Sounds like a pretty sucky game to me.

 

Sorry, still havn't shed the bitterness quite yet....

[Bubba Gump]

I'm still in total disbelief. I still expect to be watching the Bills play next Sunday. Unreal. It was a great game for KC, and a devastating game for the Bills no matter how great anyone thinks it was.

[UKBillFan]

10 minutes ago, Blainorama5 said:

That's just awesome.  Great game for television - and the Bills lose.  Sounds like a pretty sucky game to me.

 

Sorry, still havn't shed the bitterness quite yet....

Agreed. Bully for him he got to broadcast what he thought was a great game. For me it was anything but.

[Aussie Joe]

I've been on the losing end of a couple of different sports " one of the greatest games ever"...One from many years ago that still lingers..

 

Unfortunately being considered as such  doesn't do much to ease the pain

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2022 by Aussie Joe

[dorquemada]

1 minute ago, Azucho98 said:

Bills need to find a way to win the close games.  The closest game we won was a 12-point victory over the Pats.  The games we lost were all close except for the Colts:

 

23-16 L (Pittsburgh) 7 points

34-31 L (Titans) 3 points

9-6 L (Jags) 3 points

41-15 L (Colts) 26 points

14-10 L (Pats) 4 points

33-27 L (Bucs) 6 points

42-36 L (Chiefs) 6 points

 

Ouch - lots to grow from there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I still don't know why they had such a swoon mid season there, i mean i'm familiar with the litany of excuses, but to me it falls on coaching.  I don't think Dogballs and Frazier have what it takes to win big games.  I don't think they're going to all of a sudden develop the killer instinct required to do so.   The worst case scenario is to waste JA's best years on figuring that out as an organization.

[BuffaloMatt]

🤮

[TheBrownBear]

32 minutes ago, Aussie Joe said:

I've been on the losing end of a couple of different sports " one of the greatest games ever"...One from many years ago...

 

Unfortunately being considered as such  doesn't do much to ease the pain

 

 

I'm a UCLA grad and a HUGE UCLA basketball fan who still catches multiple games in person every season.  Last year's Final Four halfcourt buzzer beater loss to Gonzaga was being talked about as maybe the greatest Final Four game in history.  Great to see your team be part of a historic moment.  Not so great when they are on the losing end.  Between that loss and last night - this past year has been a tough test of my resiliency as a sports fan, I'll tell you that much.

[Mr. WEO]

he lives 3 hours from an airport?

[SoMAn]

1 hour ago, JohnnyBuffalo said:

Interesting to hear a person with no skin in the game talk about it being emotional.   I found it very emotional and I am still not over it.  
 

On a different personal note…since this is referencing a guy who produced the game…I find myself frustrated with prime time production of nfl games.   Too many shots of non football related stuff.   I want to see the field and what’s going on there!   Not fans.   Not the coaches.  Not the other teams QB when we have the ball or our QB when they have the ball.    Take your collective heads out of your arses and produce a football game.   Not another dumb tv drama!

 

That is all.   I go now into the off-season angry and bitter.  
 

Go Bills!
 

 

To your point, there was a play (can’t remember which one) that I really wanted to see the replay. But they already had all these graphics and stats cued up comparing past QBs or games. I don’t care! Can we focus on the game we’re watching?-please! 

I want to see the alignments and other pre-snap activity and too often, the broadcast is showing something else and only cuts to live action barely in time to see the ball snapped. 

Edited January 24, 2022 by SoMAn

[colin]

10 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

he lives 3 hours from an airport?

 

at no traffic 0 dark hundred too!

[Reks Ryan]

29 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

he lives 3 hours from an airport?

The things you notice.  Nowhere in CT is 3 hours from an airport.  Really without traffic, I don't think anywhere is more than 1 hour from a major airport.  

 

Maybe for a direct flight he flew out of a more distant airport like JFK or Newark.      Would rather talk about any nonsense than that game. 

[BhamBillsFan]

57 minutes ago, dorquemada said:

 

I still don't know why they had such a swoon mid season there, i mean i'm familiar with the litany of excuses, but to me it falls on coaching.  I don't think Dogballs and Frazier have what it takes to win big games.  I don't think they're going to all of a sudden develop the killer instinct required to do so.   The worst case scenario is to waste JA's best years on figuring that out as an organization.

Agreed, I like McDermott and he should still be our HC, but he has to get two better, more knowledgable Coordinators. Frazier is absolutely horrendous and I pray that some team disagrees with me and hires him, and Daboll is damn lucky to have a young, future HOF QB in Josh Allen, that he will eventually wreck, if he keeps running the crap out of him. That blank look that Frazier has on the sideline reminds me of that bonehead McCarthy with the Cowboys! I don't think either of them has a clue what is going on. Frazier made no adjustments at halftime! The Bills cannot keep up with the speed of KC, so you have to be more physical than them and jam the WR's and TE's at the line, all night long. The only thing that will make me feel good after this game, is if Daboll and Frazier take other jobs!!!

[SoCal Deek]

50 minutes ago, TheBrownBear said:

I'm a UCLA grad and a HUGE UCLA basketball fan who still catches multiple games in person every season.  Last year's Final Four halfcourt buzzer beater loss to Gonzaga was being talked about as maybe the greatest Final Four game in history.  Great to see your team be part of a historic moment.  Not so great when they are on the losing end.  Between that loss and last night - this past year has been a tough test of my resiliency as a sports fan, I'll tell you that much.

UCLA? Is that school even still open? Fight On! 😉

 

Go Bills!

[TheBrownBear]

6 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

UCLA? Is that school even still open? Fight On! 😉

 

Go Bills!

Oh no you didn't.  Lol.

[Giuseppe Tognarelli]

51 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

he lives 3 hours from an airport?

I do. It's extremely frustrating.

[Dan]

Like I said this morning... I just sick of of these great amazing games that everyone talks about and loves... but the Bills lose.   So now for 20 years we get to hear about the 13 second Kansas City shuffle or whatever catchy thing they’re gonna call it.  And NFL network will show replays forever.  And all I wanna do is forget about it because it’s further evidence that our franchise is cursed. 

[JohnnyBuffalo]

1 hour ago, SoMAn said:

To your point, there was a play (can’t remember which one) that I really wanted to see the replay. But they already had all these graphics and stats cued up comparing past QBs or games. I don’t care! Can we focus on the game we’re watching?-please! 

I want to see the alignments and other pre-snap activity and too often, the broadcast is showing something else and only cuts to live action barely in time to see the ball snapped. 

I remember that moment and used it to prove to my wife my point!    I literally yelled at the tv, like a complete moron, who gives a fire truck!

 

[ToGoGo]

We just have to start seeing this game as the game that the country realized Allen is a legendary talent and equal to Mahomes. 

 

Next year the country realizes that it's actually not equal.