CBS Has Eye for AFC; Monday Nights Get a Little Earlier

CBS is back in the NFL picture after a four-year absence, only now as the network of the AFC rather than the NFC.

NBC and Turner are out, and they are talking about forming their own league.

ESPN now has Sunday nights to itself but is in a messy situation after trying to move its last three Sunday night baseball telecasts to ESPN2 to make room for the NFL.

But for the football fan, the network shuffling isn’t that big of a deal. It’s the same game, with different channels.

There is the battle of the pregame shows, with Fox holding a big advantage, having beefed up an already solid cast--James Brown, Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long return--with the addition of Cris Collinsworth.

CBS counters with host Jim Nantz and an all-rookie lineup of Brent Jones, George Seifert and Marcus Allen.

“We are starting at a disadvantage as the new guys on the block,” CBS Sports President Sean McManus said. “I hope everyone will recognize that and not compare us right away to Fox and ESPN.”

But a pregame show is simply that, and who does a better job is an inside-the-industry thing.

What will actually have the greatest impact on viewers this season, at least in this part of the country, is the 5 p.m. start for ABC’s “Monday Night Football.” Actually, with a new pregame show taking up the first 20 minutes or so, kickoffs will be around 5:20.

“It was done for the benefit of the Eastern time zone,” said ABC’s Al Michaels, who lives in Brentwood. “It will have little impact in the Central time zone and a slightly negative impact out here.

“If someone gets home around 6:15 and sits down to have some dinner and starts watching at halftime and the game is one-sided, we may lose that viewer altogether.”

A more logical approach, it would seem, would have been for ABC to split the difference and go with a 5:30 start and a 5:40 kickoff. Ten minutes of pregame is all you need. Just set the table and get out of the way.

If it’s pregame coverage you seek, ESPN offers a ton.

A 5:40 kickoff would be early enough to almost always ensure a game ending before midnight in the East, yet late enough to give people in the West time to get home from work without missing too much.

One change that that should benefit all viewers of “Monday Night Football” is the addition of Boomer Esiason and subtraction of Frank Gifford.

We’ve never been a Gifford basher. We appreciated his low-key approach and the fact that he never took himself too seriously and never interfered with the game. Gifford, who has moved over to pregame duties, was better than a bombastic commentator who feels his job is to be critical, draw attention to himself and then look for his name in TV columns.

Still, there is little question that Esiason is an upgrade. He may have some flaws in the beginning, but let’s give him a chance to settle in.

“I think because of the unique fishbowl that is ‘Monday Night Football,’ he is going to be criticized,” Michaels said. “But he shouldn’t be judged after one or two telecasts. No one is headed to the Hall of Fame after one or two games, and that goes for broadcasters too. Boomer is going to be very, very good. He’s smart, he’s topical, and he has a good sense of humor.

“I asked Boomer who his favorite commentator was, who he would try to model himself after. Of course, I meant football commentator. But Boomer said Tim McCarver.

“I thought that was wonderful. That he named a baseball commentator meant he was thinking like a broadcaster, not a football player.”

The Michaels-Dan Dierdorf-Esiason team should be a good one. With NBC’s Dick Enberg now doing Notre Dame football, Michaels is unquestionably the preeminent NFL play-by-play announcer. The Dierdorf bashers have pretty much disappeared and everybody is expecting good things from Esiason.

Greg Gumbel has moved out of the CBS studio to hook up with Phil Simms as the No. 1 team--which should be a good one--and ESPN has added Paul Maguire to its broadcast team of Mike Patrick and Joe Theismann. The problem is Theismann and Maguire together might be a bit much.

It would have been nice for CBS to keep the Verne Lundquist-Pat Haden team intact, but CBS instead paired Lundquist with Randy Cross, while Haden will join Enberg on Notre Dame football for NBC.

But overall, after some fine-tuning during the exhibition season, it appears the networks are ready for some football.