Reminder: Game Should Be the Show

The lesson is out there for the taking, not that it necessarily means anything for the future of the Super Bowl, the NFL or network television, but it bears repeating after the league and CBS discovered Sunday that cover-two is not an essential strategy during the halftime show:

Football is football, and entertainment is entertainment, and both are much better off when they stay in different arenas and stick to what they know best.

To put it another way, if Justin Timberlake tears off part of Janet Jackson’s costume and exposes Jackson’s right breast without millions of football fans watching, does it merit a top-of-the-news sound bite?

CBS and the NFL couldn’t help themselves. Presented with the slam-dunk proposition of our generation -- how to get people to watch the Super Bowl -- the co-hosts got too greedy, and got what they deserved, opting to rule the universe when they had most of humankind wrapped up well before kickoff.

Deciding that 750 million viewers worldwide just wasn’t good enough, the network and the league sought to broaden the game’s appeal, but weren’t sure how exactly to clear one troublesome hurdle: How to seem youthful and hip and on the cutting edge when you’re stuck with Jim Nantz and Bill Belichick.

Their solution: Bring on MTV.

CBS and the NFL expressed shock after Timberlake and Jackson conspired during Sunday’s halftime show to change the game’s title to Super Bowl XXXVIII(R). Apparently, they hadn’t checked out MTV’s website, which featured the following headline in anticipation of the MTV-produced halftime show:

“Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl Show Promises ‘Shocking Moments’ ”

Then again, we’re talking about some tragically unhip people at CBS and the NFL. There’s a very good chance they hadn’t seen the MTV website.

Jackson delivered as MTV promised, and now, after a flurry of angry phone calls more ferocious than the Carolina Panthers’ blitz, the NFL says it’s “unlikely” MTV will produce any more Super Bowl halftime shows.

It’s a start.

Now, while everybody’s still in the mood, how about one more step?

How about television networks letting their sports announcers announce -- a radical suggestion, I know, but stay with me here -- and spare them and us the embarrassment of watching them act like idiots as they try haplessly to “entertain” the audience?

During a four-hour pregame show that was twice too long for anybody’s good, CBS had its on-site studio analysts “stretch” during a painfully long procession of wince-along-with-us antics that included Nantz wearing a cowboy hat, Nantz and Deion Sanders riding steers in the parking lot outside Reliant Stadium, Dan Marino fondling an armadillo, Nantz and the gang shilling for Pizza Hut and, horror of all horrors, the venerable and honorable Dick Enberg dressed up like a mad professor -- white lab coat, stethoscope, rubber gloves -- for a cheesy bit on how to create the “ultimate” NFL player.

Oh, doctor.

These hijinks undermined some solid pieces of journalism: Enberg’s interviews with relatives of the astronauts killed in last year’s space-shuttle disaster, Armen Keteyian’s sensitive examination of the illnesses that took the life of Trent Dilfer’s son and threaten the well-being of the sons of Jim Kelly and Boomer Esiason.

Near the end of the pregame show, the studio crew found itself roped into an incredible bit that gave everyone involved pause, as if some pain threshold and/or unspoken code of decency had been breached. A videogame company gave digitized treatment to “The NFL Today” team, resulting in creepy computer-graphic replicas of Nantz, Marino, Sanders and Esiason.

“What is THAT?!” an aghast Sanders wanted to know when the piece mercifully dragged to a close.

“America, that looks nothing like me,” Sanders said, glaring into the camera. “That looks like a dude from ‘The Planet of the Apes,’ or something. Man.”

Again, class: Let the announcers announce, let the football players on the field entertain.

It took CBS a while to catch on, but that concept worked reasonably well after the ball was kicked off. CBS lucked into a great game, a last-second 32-29 victory by New England, when it had no reason to expect anything close. Play-by-play man Greg Gumbel did well to stay out of the way of a good developing story, and analyst Phil Simms spiced the telecast with strong and credible opinions throughout.

After New England squibbed a kickoff after taking a 14-7 lead just before halftime, Simms observed, “Can I say one more time how much I hate the squib kick?”

The short kick set up Carolina at its own 47, needing only 20 yards or so to move into field-goal range.

Panther running back Stephen Davis got 21 yards on a surprising first-down draw play.

“What a call,” Simms said. “If it didn’t work, all of us would be saying, ‘What a stupid call. What are they doing?’ ”

Carolina turned Davis’ gain into a successful field-goal attempt by John Kasay just before the second quarter expired, and Simms could not resist, repeating, “Can I tell you how much I hate the squib kick?”

During the second half, Simms criticized Carolina Coach John Fox’s decision to go for a two-point conversion with his team trailing, 21-16, in the fourth quarter. The conversion failed, prompting the Panthers to try another after they scored again to take a 22-21 lead. That attempt also failed.

“Don’t chase the points,” Simms said after the first conversion miss. “Wait until you have to [go for two].”

It was sound advice for a Super Bowl. Stick to the basics. Don’t get too fancy. Stay within yourself.

That goes for broadcasting teams, as well as for football teams.