Tony Dungy was let go by NBC’s “Football Night In America” show ahead of the 2026 season.
The NBC pregame show went through a major reshuffling. Dungy, a Super Bowl-winning head coach, was among those let go. Rodney Harrison also did not return. Dungy had been working in TV since retiring from coaching in 2008.
In a preview clip from an exclusive interview on The Sage Steele Show, Dungy explained that he thinks his religious views could have been to blame for his exit from NBC. However, Dungy is not going to apologize for them. Dungy says that he refuses to be ashamed for his views.
“I kind of knew that was going to be the case, but then they came to me and Rodney and said, you know, they wanted to get a little younger and change the voices and they appreciated what we had done. But they were moving on and reshaping the show,” Dungy said. “So it was tough, but that’s happened before in my football career, and it happened there.”
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Dungy told Steele that he knows there are certain topics that TV executives don’t love, with religion being one of them. But Dungy said that he’s not going to be ashamed of his views.
“There are some things that in TV especially, they want you to be careful because they want to attract everybody. They want to have an audience of everyone. They don’t always appreciate you speaking about your faith,” Dungy said. “But for me, I’m always going to do that, and I’m going to try to do it in a respectful way. But people are going to know that I’m a Christian. So that part is never going to leave. I am pro-life, and I’m not gonna be ashamed to say that.”
Dungy says that NBC knew his views, though.
“I was pretty sure it was, you know, that there were things that they didn’t want me to talk about, and we had a good understanding,” Dungy said. “They knew who I was when I got hired, and it is what it is.”
Ultimately, Dungy had a good time on the air. He’s unsure if his religious views impacted his firing.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. And it really doesn’t matter,” he added. “I look at it as I was there 17 years and had some great times and great relationships. The Lord has something different.”
