T.J. to Mission Control: Abort! Abort!

Let’s be honest, it’s not a science project and it’s not being done for public relations: John Glenn is leaving the planet next week to avoid another wretched NFL weekend.

That still leaves time for the former senator from Ohio to catch one more look at his Cincinnati Bengals this Sunday, although that would require a visit to the Oakland Coliseum, something far scarier than sitting atop thousands of gallons of exploding rocket fuel.

This should be the most exciting time of year, and not only because the NFC East and the Padres aren’t playing this weekend.

This should be a time of great anticipation, and while there’s promise in Sunday’s Jacksonville-Denver and New England-Miami contests, combine last week’s schedule with the NFL’s slate of games to be played the next two weeks--38 games in all--and only five will feature both teams with winning records.

Unless you’re into counting how many quarterbacks named Billy Joe will play for the Saints this season or how many different ways people try to say Doug Flutie is vertically challenged, that’s not much to hold everyone until Dec. 13, when 0-13 Washington comes to grips with 0-13 Carolina.

TV ratings have fallen, and in some places there’s no sign of life. Visa has been running a 1 1/2-month campaign to locate the ultimate football fan in each of the NFL’s 31 cities, with entrants submitting 50-word essays, the winner receiving a two-day trip to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, a prize valued at $6,000.

Moving into the final week of the campaign, not a single football fan has responded on behalf of the Arizona Cardinals or the Philadelphia Eagles.

It’s worse in San Diego. If you’re a football fan, you must watch the Chargers. This week the city of San Diego bought all unsold tickets, lifting the TV blackout and taking Jacksonville-Denver off the air so the Charger-Seahawk game can be seen locally.

The best game of the year was supposed to be played next week with the undefeated San Francisco 49ers taking on the undefeated Packers in Green Bay, but those two teams have already combined for three losses, and San Francisco must still play the Rams this weekend.

“I didn’t find last week’s game between San Francisco and Indianapolis boring,” said George Young, longtime New York Giant general manager and currently senior vice president of football operations for the NFL.

One question: Why would the senior vice president of football operations for the NFL start watching the San Francisco-Indianapolis game in the first place?

Answer: At that time of day Sunday, it was either that or Dallas at Chicago, St. Louis at Miami or Philadelphia at San Diego, or the Sunday afternoon movie, “Ernest Goes to Jail,” which he had probably already seen.

In the good old days, outstanding Sunday afternoon TV fare was the Lakers versus the Celtics or the Bulls against anyone. Or the Cowboys and Redskins in their prime. Where have all the dynasties gone?

“Forget the dynasty stuff,” Young said. “We’re not interested particularly in dynasties. We like close games in the NFL, close races with the best team winning.

“I don’t want to sound like P.T. Barnum here, but how about some perspective? The Cowboys look a little bit better this year, Steve Young has been unbelievable, even though we don’t know if the 49ers have a great team yet. You have Randall Cunningham doing his Lazarus thing in Minnesota, Randy Moss is playing great, Doug Flutie has everyone in Buffalo buying Flutie Flakes and some of the league’s so-called backups have played great.”

So why does this season feel flatter than any other? When the best game of the weekend is New Orleans against Atlanta, as it was a week ago, finishing with Billy Joe Tolliver dueling with 44-year-old Steve DeBerg, well, Ernest should not be the only one going to jail.

The game is dreadful, of course, because there are so many dreadful quarterbacks, but then there have always been dreadful quarterbacks.

Unfortunately, the young dreadful quarterbacks who are supposed to grow up and save the game, remain dreadful.

“Too many quarterbacks are coming out of college early,” Young said. “That’s the problem here. If they came out later with a little more maturity and a little more experience, they might develop sooner and be better when they reach fruition.

“They are still going to develop; I’m not in a hurry, I have a lot of patience with the development of players.”

In the meantime paying customers attending football games will view soccer matches.

“I don’t see any reason for doom and gloom,” Young said. “We still have the most exciting regular-season games of any sport--the most competitive--and unlike other sports . . . we put every game on TV.”

That’s the way the NFL has always done business, but this season is different because TV has changed. The NFL has never been covered as it has been this year, and all because of a new TV contract that will pay each NFL owner an average of $73 million a year for the next eight seasons.

The networks are providing more pregame shows, postgame shows and overall hype not because the NFL is having a Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa-like year, but because they must now justify their payout to the league.

The TV blitz is numbing: A two-hour “Sunday NFL Countdown,” followed by “SportsCenter,” then “NFL Prime Time,” to be repeated later in the night, before the morning begins with a 6 a.m. hourlong “SportsCenter,” rerun at 7, 8 and 9, leading to an afternoon “SportsCenter” and then “Monday Night Countdown.”

And that’s only ESPN, the same highlights over and over, and all those dreadful quarterbacks brought right into your living room, before ABC shows them once again in rapid fashion with Chris Berman orchestrating the Monday night TV halftime show.

Throw in “sound bites,” TV’s insistence on having top players say something no matter how insignificant--just say something. “The sound bite is just there for rhythm and pacing. It’s not there to convey information,” analyst Andrew Tyndall said in a USA Today story on news coverage, but he might as well have been talking about the overexposure of football this season.

Nothing escapes TV--every play of any significance being replayed over and over. Watching the World Series, it appeared Fox was intent on identifying the eye color of every participant, every fan in attendance, and now there’s something new to bring us every flutter and bounce as Ryan Leaf’s pass falls incomplete: the Super Shot.

There might even be as many exciting NFL plays as yesteryear: An old man like Steve Young rumbling and stumbling for a touchdown is darn exciting, fun to scrutinize and howl over upon replay: Look at the geezer go.

Maybe it’s even fun to watch two or three times. But when it’s shown so often that Young’s a turnoff, and “Ally McBeal” becomes more appealing on another channel--OK, so worst-case scenario--you get the picture.

As a result, TV has made the game stale. No longer can you turn to someone and say, “You gotta see this play.” They’ve already seen it, and seen it, and seen it, and don’t worry about it, if for some reason Drew Bledsoe makes a big play this season, it will be shown more than “Seinfield” reruns.

Football hasn’t changed as much as the way it’s covered, so “Godspeed, John Glenn,” but if you must look outside your spacecraft’s window, know this: Fox TV will be ready with its Super Shot, some announcer surmising you just couldn’t resist looking down upon the New Orleans-Carolina game, and upon your touchdown, the first sound bite everyone will want is what did you think of Mike Ditka’s game plan?