The show started in 1984 as Monday Night Matchup with Chris Berman as host with Allie Sherman, former Giants coach, and Steve Sabol of NFL Films providing analysis.
Since the 2004 season Sunday NFL Countdown and SportsCenter correspondent Sal Paolantonio has served as the host.
[1] The program converted to a high-definition presentation for the 2011 season, though some game footage camera angles (which are mainly used internally by coaching staffs, and rarely by television networks during game broadcasts except in a few circumstances) remained provided to ESPN by the NFL in standard definition for a short while after.
With Jim Rome is Burning, which ended at the end of January 2012 never converting to HD, NFL Matchup was both the final ESPN program to convert to HD and the last still utilizing some SD presentation outside of rare SportsCenter highlights still in that format.
After both Jaworski and Hoge were laid off by the network in April 2017, ESPN NFL insider Louis Riddick and Greg Cosell, the original co-creator of the show, were named the new co-hosts of the program.