The night before the two top teams kick off Super Bowl XLVI, the National Football League will salute its best players and plays from the 2011 season with a star-studded football and entertainment event -- "NFL Honors" -- a two-hour primetime awards special to air nationally on Feb. 4, 9-11 p.m. (ET) on NBC.
Current and former players such as Jerry Rice, Barry Sanders, Deion Sanders, Shannon Sharpe and Steve Young will be in attendance as the NFL and The Associated Press announce their annual accolades in an awards show format for the first time. "NFL Honors" will become an annual event from the Super Bowl city. The winners will be on hand to accept their awards.
Alec Baldwin will host the show from the Murat Theater in Indianapolis. The show will feature a live performance from Lenny Kravitz.
Kicking off the night will be a red carpet show on NFL Network from 8-9 p.m. ET featuring the sights and sounds of Super Bowl week and many of the stars that will be celebrating the best of the NFL later that evening.
Among the awards that will be announced will be the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award, which recognizes a player's off-the-field community service as well as his playing excellence.
Seven of the awards will be from the AP. Those awards, which include AP Most Valuable Player and AP Coach of the Year, are voted on at the end of the regular NFL season by a nationwide media panel of 50 people who regularly cover the league. The ballots are tabulated solely by the AP.
The AP is providing the list of honorees to the NFL for the program, and any advertising or sponsorship on the broadcast is being handled separately and independently by the NFL.
The full list of awards that will be presented will be:
Top-tier Sponsors of "NFL Honors" include Pepsi, Castrol, Van Heusen and Disney's "The Avengers" and "John Carter".
Associate sponsors include USAA, Prilosec, Vicks, Bridgestone, Papa John's and XFINITY, from Comcast.
"NFL Honors" is an NFL Network production in association with Dick Clark Productions.
