Andrew Siciliano, NFL Network anchor and host of DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket Red Zone, takes The Post’s Justin Terranova through his average NFL Sunday.
Q: How do you start your football Sundays?
A: I wake up at 5:45 (a.m. PT), watch NFL Network, roll out of bed, get dressed, stop at Starbucks get a Venti five-shot Americano. I pull into DirecTV between 6:45-7 a.m., watch all the pregame shows, have one big index card for every game with all the notes. Once the games begin I try and have that all in my head. We go on the air 9:55 every Sunday. I know that sounds a bit regimented. I am not like Dustin Hoffman in ‘Rain Man,’ but you can ask the guys at DirecTV, if things get a little off-schedule I am not a lot of fun to be around.
Q: What’s the hardest part of the day?
A: We don’t want to miss anything. There is no worse feeling I get than if we have four games on the screen and then on a different game somebody scores. I hate having to show stuff that happened 30 seconds ago or three minutes ago. I am not going to lie to the viewer, I am not going to pass anything off as live. We put so much pressure on ourselves not to miss anything. There are high-fives in the studio if somebody says, ‘There’s a fourth-and-1 at the 48, they might go for it.’ Then not only do they go for it, but they throw the 52-yard touchdown.
Q: The afternoon games are over, where do you wind down?
A: I usually just go meet friends. I’m exhausted, I never sit down for the 1 p.m. games. I just go find a place that has the Sunday night game on and stuff my face and have a drink because I really don’t eat on Sunday in an effort to stay on the air and not run down the hall. I pretty much just drink coffee the entire show.
Q: That’s the legend, that you never go “down the hall?”
A: That’s absolutely B.S. I am not going to lie about it. Yes, I try not to. I’ve gone 15-16 weeks sometimes without. Doctors do not recommend going seven hours without.
Q: When did you first realize the notoriety the show was getting?
A: Our first year, 2005, no one knew that we were on. We hadn’t figured out what we were yet. Our second year a buddy of mine, who’s an agent, texted me. I had said it was his client who got burned as a defensive back and he texted me, ‘Dude, you’re killing me. It was someone else.’ And I was like, ‘Oh crap, people are actually watching us.’
