Tony Dungy tells Sage Steele that NBC wasn't happy with his pro-life views: 'They knew where I stood'
Legendary NFL head coach and football analyst Tony Dungy is not going to apologize for being convicted in his religious beliefs.
Dungy spent years as an analyst on NBC, sharing his insight after a 13-year head coaching career in the NFL and a Super Bowl championship with the Indianapolis Colts. But curiously, despite his popularity and wealth of experience, Dungy and NBC parted ways in early 2026.
He told former ESPN personality Sage Steele that he had a sneaking suspicion as to why. During a recent, lengthy interview on "The Sage Steele Show", Dungy explained what he believed led to his exit and why he doesn't regret what he did.
Steele brought up NBC, then said from the outside, it seemed like it "was tied to you being more and more vocal about your beliefs with faith, with being pro-life."
Dungy didn't deny it, saying he felt that it wasn't always appreciated that he spoke out about his faith.
"There are some things that, I guess 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. But for me, I’m always going to do that. I'm going to try and do it in a respectful way, but people are going to know that I’m a Christian."
Relatedly, Dungy also spoke at the "March for Life" event, which he later told Steele was not a popular decision with the NBC brass. Steele asked Dungy if he'd asked permission before speaking, to which he confirmed he hadn't.
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"And they were not happy that I went because … their point is, ‘Hey, we’ve got audience on all sides of the spectrum. We don’t want to push away anyone just making statements like that.’ And I said, ‘Well, I get it, but this is an important topic to me. I was asked to speak and because it was important to me, I did.’"
Steele interjected, saying that he kept talking about it anyway, including making posts on social media.
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"They knew where I stood. I knew where they stood… there are some things I’m not going to try to turn an audience away, but things that are important to me I’m going to talk about. If somebody asked me a question about my faith and am I a Christian, I’m not going to say no. I’m not going to shy away from it."
When Steele wondered whether he'd thought of backing off his public statements on faith and being pro-life, Dungy again said no. "I said I've got to do it in the right way, and I can't do it in a belligerent manner."
Then he makes the important distinction: "You're also not doing it on 'Sunday Night Football.' I'm not going to use that platform as, 'Oh, by the way, stop talking about the game tonight. Let me just make a point about abortion.'"
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A few minutes later, Dungy admitted that he was "pretty sure" his time at the network would be coming to an end over publicly sharing his religious views.
"I was pretty sure it was. There were things that they didn't want me to talk about and we had a good understanding. They knew who I was when I got hired and, you know, it is what it is."
Though he knew it was coming, Dungy didn't go as far as saying that's definitively why he was let go. When asked directly, he said, "I don't know. And it really doesn't matter."
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Another "job" Dungy lost? He was taken off the Hall of Fame voting committee. When Steele brought that up, potentially wondering if that too was related to his public comments, he said he was told it was completely unrelated, "I don't know exactly, they said that they wanted to go from 50 voters to 25. They thought it would make an easier process."
It's interesting to contrast how NBC apparently handled Dungy's public statements of faith, and how that relates to his views on abortion, with how many networks have little problem with comments supporting the political left or left-wing issues.
Does anyone really believe that NBC would have a problem if one of their football analysts appeared at a "No Kings" protest? Or a pro-choice march? Or spoke about gun control? Of course not. The concerns over political topics only ever go in one direction. Because the right is viewed as divisive by liberal corporations, and the left is viewed as empathetic common sense.