You’re back!
Yes, I’m back. And the primers are back too?
Anything new on NFL TV this season?
Yes. Where do you want to begin?
How about pregames. No changes right?
Au contraire! Many changes. First, there are two more Sunday pregame shows on your television this season. First, CBS Sports Network launches “That Other Pregame Show” at 9 a.m. ET. Adam Schein hosts and will be joined by Bart Scott, former Oakland Raiders executive Amy Trask, CBS Sports Radio’s Brandon Tierney and CBSSports.com fantasy expert Nathan Zegura. Allie LaForce from Lead Off will report from a selected game site. This will be a four hour show and will run until 1 p.m. Expect to see CBS’ The NFL Today crew plus NFL on CBS game announcers to appear on this as well.
ESPN2 airs something called “Colin’s New Football Show” that will be hosted by ESPN Radio Hack Colin Cowherd. It airs at 9 a.m. forcing Outside the Lines and The Sports Reporters to be pushed back to the 8 a.m. hour and a smaller audience. The less I say about this, the better.
Fox Sports 1 will unveil Fox NFL Kickoff with Joel Klatt as host. He’ll be joined by analysts Ronde Barber, Scott Fujita, Randy Moss and Brian Urlacher. Insider Jay Glazer and rules analyst Mike Pereira. The show will air at 11 a.m. and normally run for an hour leading into Fox NFL Sunday on the Fox mothership at noon ET. But it will run for 30 minutes today before giving way to a 90-minute version of Fox NFL Sunday.
NFL Network has renamed NFL GameDay First on the Field to NFL GameDay First. Melissa Stark and Sterling Sharpe return. Former New York Giant Shaun O’Hara joins the program taking the place of LaDanian Tomlinson who “graduates” to NFL GameDay Morning. Jamal Lewis is the guest analyst.
ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown returns, but with former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis in tow. He’ll be a part-time analyst on Sundays as he’ll spend many of his Saturdays watching his son play for the University of Miami.
Most of the other pregames are pretty much status quo.
How about the announcers, bunky?
Bunky! For Fox, Kevin Burkhardt joins the network from SNY. He’ll form a new announcing team with analyst John Lynch and sideline reporter Erin Andrews. Dick Stockton who was part of this team is also forming a new team with Ronde Barber and Kris Budden.
CBS doesn’t have any changes in its announcing lineup.
Games of the Week?
Week 1, everyone’s playing. I’ll choose Atlanta at New Orleans on Fox (Kenny Albert/Daryl Johnston/Tony Siragusa) at 1 p.m., Miami at Cleveland on CBS (Kevin Harlan/Solomon Wilcots) and the New York Giants at Dallas which is the Sunday night game on NBC (Al Michaels/Cris Collinsworth//Michele Tafoya).
Is CBS still not using sideline reporters?
Yup, with the exception of this week. Tracy “The Wolf” Wolfson is working the New England at Buffalo game with Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf. Tracy returns to the SEC on CBS this Saturday, but it’ll be nice to have her on an NFL game for this week only.
The Red Zones back?
Yup, the original Red Zone Channel on DirecTV hosted by Andrew Siciliano is back. And Scott Hanson returns to host the NFL Network version that participating cable providers carry.
Hey, what’s with ESPN Radio picking up games?
I’m glad you mentioned that. ESPN Radio has picked up the out-of-market rights to several teams including both New York teams, the Patriots, Steelers, Vikings and Dolphins. ESPN Radio will air games at 1 p.m. They won’t be available in the local markets, but can be distributed nationally. This week, ESPN Radio airs Tennessee at Pittsburgh with Sean McDonough on the call.
Anything else?
Nothing I can think of at 1 a.m. ET. Have fun.
