Few Viewers Can Survive a Raven-Giant Matchup

Now that the biggest event on Sunday, Jan. 28, is going to be the debut of “Survivor II,” we will need something to warm up the audience, you know, like a pregame show.

That’s why I’m pretty sure CBS will still televise the Super Bowl, probably introducing Richard Hatch later this week as a Dennis Miller-like addition to the broadcasting team of Phil Simms and Greg Gumbel.

We’ll see what happens if Hatch goes into the Raven locker room and tries taking off all his clothes.

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IT WILL BE Hatch’s job, of course, as the original survivor, to fill the dead air between touchdowns in Super Bowl XXXV with NFL stories of survival, featuring Ray Lewis, Trent Dilfer, Kerry Collins and Art Modell.

Imagine being stuck in the Australian Outback with this crew.

You’ve got your accused double-murderer facing a lifetime in prison, getting off with a misdemeanor and becoming the NFL’s defensive player of the year. I hope he doesn’t have to get into another limo to get the award.

You’ve got your poster-child stiff at quarterback, a guy who threw four touchdown passes with 18 interceptions in a 16-game season six years ago, coming back with the chance to stick the Lombardi Trophy in the face of the very people who used to boo him.

When it comes time for Dilfer to pass the Lombardi Trophy to someone else, however, I’m guessing it hits the ground.

You’ve got an accused racist, who flopped in Carolina and New Orleans, only to accept treatment for alcoholism at the Menninger Institute in Topeka, Kan., and play well enough to have everyone on his team pop open the champagne.

I’d be surprised if Collins actually comes out at the Super Bowl and says the NFL needs more white quarterbacks, but if anyone was to say it . . .

And you’ve got the most hated man in Cleveland, the walking embodiment of NFL greed, who is such a bad businessman that he already has agreed to sell full control of his team in 2004 to have the cash now to keep going.

And as one of the sports writers here suggested after Modell was given the Lamar Hunt Trophy for winning the AFC title, he’s probably off to a pawn shop now to sell it.

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THE RAIDERS WILL not be a part of CBS’s Jan. 28 survivor package, of course, because they are dead now.

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WE WOULD KNOW who the first person voted off the show would be if Dennis Green were a participant.

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I’M SURE THE NFL would like to end the season with something jazzier than a Raven-Giant Super Bowl, so just as a suggestion, why not have last year’s darling, Kurt Warner, and his wife, who we saw so often during the Super Bowl, invited as guests of honor on Temptation Island?

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CONSIDER THIS, THE man who fired Paul Brown is now 60 minutes away from winning the Super Bowl as owner of the Ravens.

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A PLANE APPEARED over the stadium pulling a banner with 6:01 left to play reminding everyone that the Raiders’ victory party would be at “Ricky’s” later. In this case, I guess later means like maybe 2002 or beyond.

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AND I WAS really feeling sorry for these people who had to go home and scrub that silver and black paint off their faces, but then someone up here told me they just keep it on all year.

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THE RAIDERS HAVE been outscored, 67-6, in their last two appearances in the AFC championship game. The team of the decades hasn’t scored a touchdown in a title game since 1984.

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RAIDER WIDE RECEIVER Andre Rison was called for offensive pass interference, wiping out a fourth-quarter touchdown catch. Bad Raider, bad Raider.

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AT ONE POINT Sunday, the two best teams in the AFC were battling for the right to go to the Super Bowl with everything riding on the arms of Dilfer and Bobby Hoying.

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I KNOW THIS is a concern of yours, waking up in the middle of the night and wondering if you have been giving enough respect to the Ravens.

“I just want to ask America,” said Baltimore’s Shannon Sharpe, “what does crow taste like, because all of you are eating it now.”

Some of the meals I’ve had at my house--I wouldn’t be complaining, but then in the Oakland Tribune Sunday morning, I predicted the final score would be: Baltimore 20, Los Angeles Raiders 10.

I wouldn’t make such a prediction in The Times--in case I was wrong.

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THE THING ABOUT Minnesota’s Randy Moss--he’s such an incredible deep threat, he could have scored and just like that it would have been only 41-7 in favor of the Giants.

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I DON’T UNDERSTAND now why every NFL coach doesn’t guarantee his team is going to win. How come Jim Fassel is the only one to think of that?

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TODAY’S LAST WORD comes in an early-Sunday morning e-mail from Naty:

“Eat your heart out, fool . . . the Raiders are going to the Super Bowl.”

Presuming they still can buy some tickets.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at his e-mail address:t.j.simers@latimes.com