It’s NFL Weekend to Savor, Without the Remote Control

The best weekend for football viewing all year is this one. What more could you ask than four National Football League playoff games spread over two days?

The trouble with New Year’s Day, traditionally a big day for football viewing, is that there are about three too many games that day. Viewers usually switch back and forth among the early games, then most are football weary later, when the important games are played.

What the NFL is offering this weekend is a much better format.

The first of the four games will be Indianapolis at Cleveland at 9:30 a.m., PST, Saturday on NBC, with Don Criqui and Bob Trumpy. Criqui is always solid, but Trumpy can sometimes grate.

Trumpy was quoted recently as saying that a friend had once told him, “Your problem is you have no filter between your brain and your mouth.”

Trumpy’s friend was perceptive. Trumpy at times speaks before he thinks. Usually, though, he is quick with a good observation, and he is never afraid to express an opinion.

The second game Saturday is Minnesota at San Francisco at 1 p.m. on CBS, with Tim Ryan and Joe Theismann. This team got the nod over Dick Stockton and Terry Bradshaw, mainly because CBS executives are slightly higher on Theismann than they are on Bradshaw.

Sunday, the networks have their No. 1 teams working. It will be CBS’ Pat Summerall and John Madden, which has been the best football announcing team in television since the two were paired in 1981, on the Washington-Chicago game at 9:30 a.m. And NBC’s Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen, who rank just a notch below Summerall and Madden, will work the Houston-Denver game at 1 p.m.

Graveyard shift: NBC’s versatile Bob Costas may start doing a late, late night all-topic interview show for his network later this year.

“A year ago, we were talking about a half-hour show following David Letterman (at 1:30 a.m.),” Costas said. “But the idea was dropped because the network could get only about 65% clearance from the affiliates. Many of them had programs scheduled after Letterman.

“Now we’re talking again, and it looks better.”

The name for the half-hour show?

“We were thinking about ‘One on One,’ but that makes it sound like a sports show, which it is not,” Costas said. “In keeping in line with ‘Today,’ ‘Tonight’ and ‘Late Night,’ we may call it ‘Good Night’ or ‘Good Bye.’ Or maybe ‘Go to Bed.’ ”

Add Costas: He was in Los Angeles this week so that NBC, during a gathering of many of the nation’s television reporters, could announce that he will be one of the hosts during this summer’s Olympics.

That was hardly news, since it has been speculated that Costas would be a daytime or late-night host ever since it was announced last summer that Bryant Gumbel was the prime-time choice.

Where Costas will be slotted has not been determined. USA Today reported this week that he would likely be paired with Jane Pauley on the early-morning “Today” segments during the Olympics.

But Michael Weisman, NBC sports’ executive producer, and Terry Ewert, the coordinating producer of the network’s Olympics coverage, indicated later that Costas will probably be used in the late-night slot, which will begin at 9:30 on the West Coast.

The other Olympic hosts announced include Enberg, who will report from various venues, and Gayle Gardner, who most likely will be used in the midday slot.

Add Gardner: The former ESPN sports anchor made her debut with NBC on New Year’s Day, and all things considered, such as the pressure she was under, she did well.

“What impressed me most was the way she handled herself,” Weisman said. “She made some mistakes, and she sort of got lost there for a moment during the halftime of the Orange Bowl.

“But she recovered nicely, and afterward, off the air, she took full blame.

“Some of our other on-air talent always finds someone else to blame, the producer or whoever. But Gayle didn’t do that, and that’s what I liked best about her.”

The two Gayles, Gardner and Sierens, you might say, have been taking NBC by storm.

The Dodgers held a welcome-home press conference for their new broadcaster, Don Drysdale, this week.

It hasn’t been determined yet exactly how the Dodgers will use Drysdale, but he figures to work more innings than did Jerry Doggett, whose retirement provided the opening for Drysdale.

Drysdale is making it easy for them. “Any way they want to work it is fine with me,” he said. “If they want to go with one announcer at a time, as they always have, that’s OK. If they want to pair us up, that’s OK, too.”

While with the Chicago White Sox, Drysdale had Ken Harrelson and later Frank Messer as a color commentator.

“I did the play-by-play for the first three innings and the last three, and did the color for the middle three,” Drysdale said.

Add Drysdale: He’ll be honored by the Westwood Shrine Club at its annual dinner next Wednesday night at 7 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Many of Drysdale’s former teammates will be there. Tommy Hawkins, the Dodgers’ newly appointed vice president/communications, will emcee the event.

TV-Radio Notes For those planning ahead, the Super Bowl in San Diego Jan. 31, televised by ABC, will start at 3 p.m. . . . No. 1 Miami and No. 2 Florida State are scheduled to meet in football next Oct. 29, but the game may be moved to Sept. 3 and televised in prime time by CBS, a Florida State spokesman said. . . . The highest-rated of the New Year’s bowl games was the Orange, which drew a national Nielsen rating of 20.8. Last year, the Fiesta Bowl, pitting No. 1 Miami and No. 2 Penn State, was televised on Jan. 2 and drew a 25.1. Other national ratings for this year’s bowl games, released Thursday, are: Rose, 16.5; Cotton, 16.0; Fiesta, 8.7; Florida Citrus, 8.2; and Sugar, 7.9. In L.A., the Rose Bowl outdrew the Orange, 26.6 to 20.7.

In a two-hour special Saturday night at 8, ABC will provide prime-time coverage of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, featuring the women’s final. “It’s our version of the ‘Golden Girls,’ ” says Dennis Swanson, ABC Sports president. The coverage from Denver is live in the East and delayed three hours in the West. Announcers will be Jim McKay, Dick Button and Peggy Fleming, with David Santee, the 1981 silver medalist at the World Championships, providing rinkside interviews. Included in Saturday night’s show will be taped coverage of tonight’s men’s final.

Add figure skating: HBO offers an excellent one-hour tribute to Dorothy Hamill Monday night at 8. Part of the show traces Hamill’s life from her days as a youngster in Riverside, Conn., to her present career as the star of the “Stars on Ice” tour. Hamill, in an emotional segment, talks about her three-year marriage to the late Dean Paul Martin. They were divorced in 1984. Martin was killed in a plane crash last March.

The show also has some outstanding figure skating footage, taped last fall at Lausanne, Switzerland, which features many of the world’s top skaters. The hosts of the show are Anne Simon and Scott Hamilton. The producer is Michael Whelan, who has been working on the show for the last five months. Other play dates include Jan. 16, 20 and 31.

Bud Greenspan’s “16 Days of Glory,” the official film of the 1984 Summer Olympics, will be televised on the Disney Channel for a second time as a five-part mini-series, running on consecutive Tuesdays at 8 p.m., beginning next week. The film made its premiere on the Disney Channel last year.

Bad news for satellite dish owners: Major league baseball will begin scrambling next season. Bryan Burns, baseball’s director of broadcasting, estimates that less than half of next season’s regional telecasts will be available to satellite dish owners. . . . Fred Wallin began working with Stu Nahan on KABC Radio’s “Sportstalk” show this week. Wallin got the job after filling in during Nahan’s vacation a few weeks ago.

The “Coaches’ Show,” with George Raveling and Walt Hazzard, makes its debut on Channel 2 Saturday at noon. Jim Lampley is the host. The show usually will be shown at 5 p.m., after the Pac-10 game of the week. . . . ESPN’s Dick Vitale delivered an impassioned anti-drug speech during a recent high school basketball tournament at Pine Bluff, Ark., and part of it will be shown on “Scholastic Sports Armerica” next Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.