If Aikman is the quarterback of the broadcast, Rich Russo is the head coach. He’s the director on Fox's A Crew, its best sports broadcast team. Ultimately, he's in charge of what viewers see on their TVs during a football game. He says his job is to make the viewer feel like they're sitting in the stands, seeing and hearing everything as if they're inside Gillette Stadium on this brisk Sunday afternoon. "You have to put yourself in the audience’s shoes," he says. "What does the viewer want to see?"

It’s equally a storytelling challenge and a technical one, and the technology is changing constantly. Inside a fourth truck at Gillette Stadium is the Cablecam, the flying camera that shoots behind the line of scrimmage during plays, sees huddles from above, and finds players in spots no other camera can. It’s been a staple of the Fox setup since 2003, and it's now a key piece of any NFL broadcast. "There's a lot of cameras here shooting stuff," says Cablecam VP Brett Crutcher, "but we can pick off certain shots that the other cameras maybe can't… we have the ability to get right in the guy’s face, and we usually get pretty good shots from there."

Every stadium is different, but the goal never changes — bring viewers into the stands

All 31 NFL arenas are different, and everything from stadium height to the type of lighting can affect the broadcast. (Light frequencies can clash with the high-frame-rate cameras, producing dark and light frames instead of a consistent shot — Callahan says Detroit causes problems every time.) But after years together, this crew knows the oddities of every one. Fred Aldous, Fox’s audio consultant, even has presets for every stadium on his enormous audio mixing console. "The colder it gets, the better off, because everybody bundles up… they're wearing a sound blanket, if you will." That’s why Aldous loves mixing in Green Bay. "This stadium," he says, pointing toward the field behind him, "it's nice because it's an open stadium." The sound escapes from the field, he says, rather than just reverberating throughout the stadium.

His setup changes every week, but Aldous’ goal is always the same. "I want the viewer at home to be a part of the audience in the stands, because the field of play never moves in front of you when you're in the stands," he says.

"I want them to feel like they're sitting in the crowd, so I put crowd 360 degrees around, my announcers in the center speaker, and fill in the front left and rights with my effects mix — that's kind of being an observer of a game." There are offensive linemen and coaches wearing mics, with others set up all over the field and stadium. "The HD picture is absolutely beautiful," Aldous says, "but without sound, without hearing the quarterback, hearing some of the hits, hearing the emotion of the crowd in everything, I don't think it would be nearly as good."

Troy Aikman is responsible for driving the broadcast, for actually telling viewers the game’s most important stories. The Hall-of-Fame quarterback turned superstar analyst spends Friday and Saturday with Russo and Zyontz, meeting with both teams and watching them practice. They learn about each team's game plan, and identify some of the key story lines for the game. The three men also spend hours together each week watching game film, making sure Zyontz and Russo are ready for everything Aikman might bring up on the broadcast.

This week, the stories write themselves, Zyontz says. "You have two of the great quarterbacks, future Hall-of-Famers, Drew Brees and Tom Brady. Tom Brady is standing there frustrated as heck: he doesn't have Gronkowski back, he has young receivers, and he looks across the field and Drew Brees has a plethora of riches. He's got Darren Sproles, he's got Jimmy Graham, he's got Marques Colston. That's interesting to me." Every camera angle is covered, every exciting player accounted for, every team’s tendencies analyzed.

But from the moment assistant director Rich Gross stands in the truck and says "20 to red," and Fox’s live feed shifts from the Los Angeles-based pregame show to Gillette Stadium, all that goes out the window. All there is is this game, this Sunday, on dozens of screens in front of Rich Russo's face. Thom Brennaman will describe the game as it happens, and Aikman will tell its stories — the ones he predicted and the many more he couldn’t. "It's instincts, it's reactions," Zyontz says, "and it happens really quick."