Not bullish about this weekend

To borrow a phrase from the New England Patriots, last seen wandering around University of Phoenix Stadium in a stunned, zombie-like state after Eli Manning passed 13 yards to Plaxico Burress and a nation’s fans and media jumped aboard another team’s train:

Where’d everybody go?

The Lakers are gone -- playing at Orlando today and Miami on Sunday.

The Clippers are gone -- at Toronto today, at Philadelphia on Saturday.

The Kings are gone (no straight line intended) -- at Pittsburgh on Saturday, at Columbus on Sunday.

The Ducks are gone -- at New Jersey today, at Detroit on Sunday.

Even UCLA and USC are gone, the Bruins and Trojans men’s basketball teams taking their swings through the state of Washington.

We do have . . . professional bull riding. At the Honda Center. Two days of it. Bulls on Saturday! Bulls on Sunday! And Versus will be there, with live coverage on Saturday (6 p.m.) and delayed coverage on Sunday (6 p.m.)

(Who do the programmers at Versus think they are? KCAL? And what do they think they are televising? The Lakers?)

Sunday night’s Grammy Awards have cleared out all the Staples Center sports tenants, though it would not be completely accurate to characterize the L.A. sports landscape as a ghost town with tumbleweeds rolling through the streets. If tumbleweeds were rolling, fans would be lining up to buy tickets to watch.

The barren local scene mirrors the post-Super Bowl sports TV weekend, which continues its longstanding tradition as the driest on the annual calendar. It is an odd tradition, considering that the calendar now reads 2008, but it continues to be observed. It’s as if television executives and viewers have this unspoken pact that we all abstain now to atone for sins of overindulgence last Sunday.

This weekend’s national highlights are an NFL all-star game minus many stars, a golf tournament at Pebble Beach minus Tiger Woods and a NASCAR exhibition race.

You know, Major League Soccer has long been searching for that special moment where it can capture mainstream America’s interest and attention. Here it is! February 9 and 10!

Some viewing options for the weekend after Super Bowl XLII:

Super Bowl XLII (Saturday at 1:30 and 7 p.m., Sunday at 8 a.m. and 9:30 p.m., NFL Network): Talk about withdrawal pains. The Giants’ 17-14 upset of the Patriots drew a record audience of 97.5 million average viewers, with an average of 108 million looking on as David Tyree made his game-turning, late-fourth-quarter catch, and an average of 111 million watching Burress score the winning touchdown. The NFL sees those numbers and cannot get enough -- and assumes fans can’t either.

NFL Network will run replays of the game four times this weekend, an example of great restraint, as a continuous loop until April’s draft is another alternative. Then again, the network has Pro Bowl practice to cover.

Pro Bowl (Sunday, 1:30 p.m., Channel 11): Where you won’t find Tom Brady, Brett Favre, Randy Moss or LaDainian Tomlinson. Or any of the new Super Bowl champions except Osi Umenyiora, a reserve defensive lineman for the NFC. Manning didn’t make it, even after Favre, voted in as an NFC starter, backed out. Favre was replaced by Tampa Bay’s Jeff Garcia, who joins Dallas’ Tony Romo and Seattle’s Matt Hasselbeck on the roster, meaning that pre-Super Bowl, Manning was not considered among the best four quarterbacks in his conference. One for the time capsule, one way or another.

Lakers at Orlando Magic (today, 5:30 p.m. delay, Channel 9) and Lakers at Miami Heat (Sunday, 12:30 p.m., Channel 7): Whatever happened to Shaquille O’Neal? The Lakers, Magic and Heat convene to compare notes.

Washington Wizards at Phoenix Suns (Sunday, 6:30 p.m., ESPN): Here he is -- the Shaq of the rising Suns. Looking to fill that post-NFL void, David Stern now has his league right where he wants it: The Celtics are winning 80% of their games, the Lakers are reloaded, Shaq is in the same division as Kobe Bryant. Lots of celebration going on around the league. Except in Phoenix.

San Antonio Spurs at Boston Celtics (Sunday, 10 a.m., Channel 7) and Denver Nuggets at Cleveland Cavaliers (Sunday, 4 p.m., ESPN): Throw these into the mix and you have a Sunday ABC-ESPN block of four NBA games featuring last season’s champions, last season’s runners-up and a handful of teams jostling to replace them. Some might be tempted to call Spurs-Celtics an NBA Finals preview, but no one in New England is taking anything for granted anymore.

“ ‘51 Dons: Pride, Honor and Friendship”(Sunday, 5:30 p.m., FSNW): The 1951 University of San Francisco football team went 9-0 and produced nine NFL players, including Hall of Famers Gino Marchetti, Ollie Matson and Bob St. Clair. But the Dons’ most impressive stand did not happen near any goal line. It came when the team declined a trip to the Orange Bowl when game promoters indicated that USF would be invited only if the Dons’ two African American players, Matson and Burl Toler, stayed behind.

Ducks at Detroit Red Wings (Sunday, 12:30 p.m., Channel 4) and Liverpool at Chelsea (Sunday, 8 a.m., Fox Soccer Channel): Big grudge matches in North American hockey and English soccer, respectively. Common threads: heated emotions, cold playing surfaces.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Budweiser Shootout (Saturday, 5 p.m., Channel 11): This exhibition tuneup for the opening of the 2008 NASCAR season offers no points but many commercials for Fox’s coverage of the 50th Daytona 500 on Feb. 17.

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christine.daniels@latimes.com