ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 25, 1996 TAG: 9608270022
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: NFL ON THE AIR
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
Someone - perhaps it was Pete Rozelle, or maybe Al DeRogatis - once said change is good.
If that's so, then the 77th NFL season, which kicks off one week from today, should be very entertaining.
The five networks that televised the NFL last season remain the same. Their contracts with the league, worth a total of $4.4 billion, run through the 1997 season. However, who you'll see and hear calling those games and filling those studio chairs for ever-lengthening pregame shows will be different in many cases.
Some of the changes might even be refreshing.
There's even something new about the sport and nation's glamour game. The NFL will play Super Bowl XXXI on Jan.26 at the Louisiana Superdome, but for the first time, it will be televised by the Fox Network. That, of course, means the men calling the game will be familiar. Pat Summerall and John Madden will be working their 16th NFL season as telecast partners, having started on CBS before it lost its share of the NFL to Fox after the 1993 season.
This will be the sixth Super Bowl telecast for the Summerall-Madden duo and the 14th for Summerall, who also has worked a few on radio. The broadcast version of the game will have new voices, however.
On CBS Radio, the longtime team of Jack Buck and Hank Stram has been replaced on Monday night games and the Super Bowl by Howard David and Matt Millen. A former Washington Redskin, Millen will continue as the No.2 Fox telecast analyst on Sunday afternoons, too.
So, here's what and who is new in the NFL picture this season.
NBC: The studio show will be strikingly different. First, the chronological show title is gone. What was ``NFL '95'' has become ``The NFL on NBC.'' More importantly, following what ESPN did first and Fox did later, NBC is going to an hour-long pregame, starting at noon.
NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol said in the past the network wouldn't do this, primarily because he figured many affiliates with ``Meet the Press'' and ``Sunday Today'' wouldn't be willing to give up another half-hour of local programming to the NFL. When Ebersol proposed the one-hour NFL preview, he went 50-for-50 in the nation's top 50 markets.
The network is giving local affiliates, including Roanoke's WSLS (Channel 10), five minutes of commercial time to sell in the first half-hour of the show, compared with the one minute the locals had in the old half-hour format. For viewers, there will another plus besides 30 minutes more of talkin' football:
Cris Collinsworth.
The former Cincinnati receiver leaves the booth, where he worked last season with Marv Albert, for a chair in the crowded NBC studio. If Collinsworth continues the strong, opinionated style he has displayed in halftime segments during the preseason, his contribution to a show that already has Mike Ditka and Joe Gibbs should be great.
Studio part-timer Joe Montana won't be back and won't be missed, mostly because he said little. Bob Costas will return to the studio mix after a couple of seasons away from football. He will contribute commentary and feature pieces. Greg Gumbel and Ahmad Rashad remain the hosts, with Will McDonough and Jim Gray reporting.
In the booth, fired Tampa Bay coach Sam Wyche gets Collinsworth's old seat next to Albert, and Bart Oates moves in as an analyst, working with Dan Hicks. Tunch Ilkin's contract was not renewed.
FOX: Former All-Pro safety Ronnie Lott takes a vacant chair in the Hollywood studio, where the show remains one hour in length, but what the network is heralding most this season involves the man who used to sit in Lott's spot. At 4 p.m. Oct.27, Fox has the most anticipated game of the regular season, when Dallas visits Miami for the Jimmy Johnson Hairspray Bowl.
Johnson's new team against his old one, owned by an antagonist with the same initials, Jerry Jones. Expect Fox to hype this one all season long. Two Sundays later, Fox also has Dallas visiting San Francisco. That matchup last season on Fox delivered the highest Sunday afternoon NFL rating in a decade.
Fox not only has its first Super Bowl, but also the World Series in October. So, while Joe Buck and Thom Brennaman are busy calling baseball's postseason on the network, Fox will use Mike Breen and Sam Rosen on play-by-play, with Bill Maas and Ron Pitts, respectively. Fox's new booth pairing puts Kenny Albert - Marv's son - with Tim Green.
ABC: If it seems Al Michaels, Dan Dierdorf and Frank Gifford have been around forever, well, only ``The Giffer'' has. This will be ABC's 27th season of ``Monday Night Football,'' and Gifford's 26th. It began in 1970 with Keith Jackson, the late Howard Cosell and Don Meredith.
This is the 10th season for the current trio, although Michaels and Gifford worked the games together a year earlier in the only Monday night season with a two-man booth. While the team and the usual attractive schedule are the same, there will be a difference at halftime.
ESPN's Chris Berman replaces Brent Musburger as highlights host, a move orchestrated by new ABC Sports president Steve Bornstein, who also is the ESPN chief and who continues to combine the forces of Capital Cities' sister networks.
ESPN: The cable network has the second-half schedule of Sunday night games again, but the changes will come earlier in the day. What has been ``ESPN GameDay'' is now ``ESPN Countdown.'' And, after trying a 90-minute length for the studio show the last four weeks of the 1995 season, the Berman-hosted show will run from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Sunday this season.
TNT: The Sunday ``Pro Football Tonight'' hour at 7 p.m. has most of the same characters, although Minnesota quarterback Warren Moon won't be back as a unique ``active player'' analyst to go with former Redskins ``Hog'' Mark May and the strong reporting work of Kevin Kiley.
The Turner folks will replace Moon - like NBC's Montana a QB who won't be missed - with Randall Cunningham.
The best addition never played the game. Syndicated writer Norman Chad will do a weekly piece on that day's games. Anyone who ever has read Chad's work in The Washington Post and other publications knows Andy Rooney won't be the only acerbic and witty voice on the tube between 7 and 8 on Sunday nights for the next few months.
LENGTH: Long : 110 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshots) Berman, Collinsworth, Lott, Costas.by CNB