NFL Network (NFLN) is an American television sports channel dedicated to American football, owned and operated by the National Football League (NFL). It was launched November 4, 2003, only eight months after the league's 32 team owners voted unanimously to approve its formation. The league invested $100 million to fund the network's operations.

NFL Films produces commercials, television programs, and feature films for the NFL. It is a key supplier of NFL Network's programming, with more than 4,000 hours of footage available in their library. Thus, much of the network's highlights and recaps feature NFL Films' trademark style of slow motion game action, sounds of the game, and the talk on the sidelines.

Beginning with the 2006 season, the channel began to broadcast eight prime time regular season NFL games, currently running under the banner of Thursday Night Football. In addition to live games, the network has covered the NFL Draft since 2006; its coverage has competed with ESPN and ESPN2.

William Stephen "Bill" Belichick (pronounced /ˈbɛlɨtʃɪk/; born April 16, 1952) is an American football head coach for the New England Patriots of the National Football League. Coaching continuously in various roles in the NFL since 1975, Belichick earned his first head coaching job with the Cleveland Browns in 1991. Following his firing in 1995, he did not serve as a head coach again until 2000 with the Patriots. Since then, Belichick has coached the Patriots to five Super Bowl appearances: victories in Super Bowls XXXVI, XXXVIII, and XXXIX, and subsequent losses in Super Bowl XLII and Super Bowl XLVI. He was named the AP NFL Coach of the Year for the 2003, 2007 and 2010 seasons. He is the NFL's second-longest tenured active head coach, behind Andy Reid.

Bill Belichick was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and raised in Annapolis, Maryland, where his father Steve Belichick was an assistant football coach at the United States Naval Academy. He graduated from Annapolis High School in 1970. While there, he played American football and lacrosse, with the latter being his favorite sport. He enrolled at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts for a postgraduate year, with the intention of improving his grades and test scores in order to be admitted into a quality college. The school would honor him forty years later by inducting him into its Athletics Hall of Honor in 2011.