NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - Dick Ebersol, the man who has brought the NFL to NBC, is on the spot to lead a turnaround of the network. Nervous execs at NBC (Research) are counting on "Sunday Night Football" - which this fall will replace ABC (Research)'s "Monday Night Football" as the premier primetime game - to be a top 20 hit and the platform the network desperately needs to promote its fall slate.

It is "the cornerstone of rebuilding," says NBC Universal Television Group CEO Jeff Zucker. After a decade of dominating primetime, the Peacock network is mired in fourth place, with only five programs in the top 30. Its problems contributed to NBC Universal's 8 percent decline in first-quarter profits, reported by parent General Electric (Research) in mid April.

Dick Ebersol is ready for his comeback

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Ebersol, who is chairman of NBC Sports and Olympics, has practically done it all in a storied TV career. He has led NBC Sports for 17 years, produced the past eight Olympic games, helped create "Saturday Night Live," and popularized professional wrestling. At 58, he exudes a been-there-done-that calm - which may be helpful because turning "Sunday Night Football" into a hit won't be easy.

"The biggest challenge is that the game is at the conclusion of a lot of football games on Sunday," says George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN and ABC Sports.

Indeed, afternoon games on CBS (Research) and Fox (Research) will spill past 7 p.m., when Ebersol's pregame program is due to start. Then NBC will go up against ABC's mighty Sunday lineup, which currently includes "Desperate Housewives" and the hit hospital drama "Grey's Anatomy."

CBS News and Sports president Sean McManus questions whether NBC can get the ratings to make its $3.6 billion investment in the NFL pay off. "Our ratings projections did not justify it," he says.

Even though the audience for "Monday Night Football" - which will be Ebersol's audience - peaked in 1989 and scored its lowest ratings ever this past season, Ebersol is unfazed. "We should be in the top ten or 12 shows every week," he says.

Ebersol signed the six-year NFL deal in mid-April a year ago, after secretly planning the move for well over a year, through the darkest moments of his life. On November 28, 2004, Ebersol and his two sons were taking off from Montrose, Colo., in a chartered Bombardier Challenger 601.

"Dad, I'm scared." Those were Teddy's last words right before the plane landed on its left wingtip and then on its nose, skidding 900 feet on its belly and crashing through a fence. Ebersol was trapped inside the plane, face down underneath the kitchen galley. He vaguely remembers his son Charlie, now 23, lifting the heavy equipment and carrying his six-foot-four, 217-pound body through the flames. Teddy was nowhere to be found.

Ebersol says that he knew right away that Teddy was dead. "The first thing I said to Susan in the emergency room was, 'Honey, you're just going to have to realize that we were blessed to have 14 incredible years with Teddy. He's gone.'"

In the days after the crash, the family confronted its pain. "The most important thing," Ebersol says, "was Susan telling us early on that it's okay to be sad and it's okay to cry, but let's not be mad or angry or bitter."

As awful as it was for Ebersol - a man "possessed," he admits, with his work - to spend a winter at home in bed, Saint James says, "the thing that saved our family was that Dick was injured in such a way that he couldn't move. He couldn't avoid thinking about Teddy and the accident and the kids."

When I ask Ebersol how losing their son affects their marriage today, he says, "We're almost always unbelievably sad."

His son's death changed him in many ways. Once a total technophobe, he now carries Teddy's computer, an Apple (Research) iBook, with him wherever he goes. Says Bob Costas, Ebersol's friend and the host of "Sunday Night Football," "It's Dick's way of honoring Teddy and taking the memory of Teddy with him."

This is an extract of a feature appearing in the latest issue of FORTUNE. To read the full-length article, go to Fortune.com or click here.