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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Montana Won’t Be On Hot Seat, Just The ‘Joe Seat’

Richard Sandomir New York Times

NFL on TV

The biggest new TV star in the land of National Football League TV is Joe Montana. Not the busiest. Just the biggest.

The cool former quarterback will cruise into NBC’s “NFL Live” studio show six times during the regular season to take temporary possession of “The Joe Seat,” when his colleague Joe Gibbs is busy on the NASCAR circuit.

As a studio analyst, Montana says he will not serve up bland responses to avoid being burned by the ravenous media. “Now I’ll feel more freedom, where I won’t have to defend my performance or my teammates,” he said. Sounds as if he forgot the media wrapped him in glory; this is Montana, not Testaverde!

But actually, the most important hire by a network was by TNT, making Verne Lundquist its NFL announcer, replacing Gary Bender. TNT has always been the laggard among football broadcasters. Lundquist is the most tangible evidence of the resolve to improve by the new TNT management regime.

“It feels comfortable,” Lundquist said. “I’ve been in NFL press boxes for 27 years. Nothing can happen in the course of a game that can throw me.”

Lundquist backed up Pat Summerall at CBS and was not eager to follow his lead to Fox Sports last season.

“In all candor, yes, I felt underappreciated there,” Lundquist said about CBS. “But I understood that. It was circumstances. If Pat had chosen not to go to Fox, I would have gone there.”

The Bender-to-Lundquist change is a quantum leap in quality, and Lundquist’s arrival can only improve the work of analyst Pat Haden. In 1986, Lundquist and Haden called college football broadcasts on CBS.

“His intelligence is obvious,” said Lundquist. “I see his sense of humor and irony displayed more at dinner than on the air. Pat’s the most enjoyable guy socially. He’s impish. But he’s afraid to show that on the air.”

TNT will air games for nine weeks (seven on Sunday, two on Thursday nights), starting with tonight’s Buffalo-Denver game.

Viewers will watch an overhauled pregame show; the dreadful “Stadium Show” is dead, replaced by the hour-long “Pro Football Tonight.” CNN’s Vince Cellini is the host, joined by analyst Mark May and reporters Craig Sager and Kevin Kiley. Warren Moon, the Minnesota Vikings quarterback, will appear by satellite.

The major changes at ESPN are in its “NFL Gameday” studio show: it will now be 75 minutes long, starting at 11:45 a.m., 15 minutes before Fox’s program, and Phil Simms has been replaced by Sterling Sharpe as the studio analyst.

“There’s seldom a week when we didn’t wish we had more time,” said Tom Jackson, a studio analyst since 1987. Added Chris Berman, the bombastic ringmaster of “Gameday”: “We’re not doing this to sell more ads. The demand is there. It can expand further. But every week, I wouldn’t want to do the equivalent of the NFL draft. That’s a harrowing thought.”

Sharpe, the Green Bay receiver who retired following a neck injury last season, has a tough act to follow; Simms went far beyond the role of the former jock hired to answer easy studio questions.

Simms has made the biggest occupational leap. He left ESPN in a contractual snit (he never signed one) to join NBC. The network, which last season won the Sunday ratings race for the first time since 1975, elevated him to the No. 1 broadcast team, with Dick Enberg and the Falstaffian Paul Maguire, who has finally been rescued from his years of obscurity as Marv Albert’s partner.

“I never really thought about being No. 1,” said Maguire. “I love what I do, and enjoyed working with Marv. When I played, guys said, when you learn your role, you become a better player. When NBC hired Bill Walsh and Bob Trumpy as No. 1, I understood my role. Sid Gilman used to say, ‘If you do what you’re supposed to do, you’re never out of a job.”’

During preseason practice, Maguire said that Simms quickly grasped what he has known all along. “It all goes so fast, those 3 hours,” Maguire said. “We came out of the booth and Phil said, ‘There were so many things I wanted to say,’ and I said, ‘Just say it. Find the time and a way to say it.’ “

Maguire’s and Simms’ elevations meant a demotion for Trumpy, who will work with the versatile Tom Hammond; Albert will work with Cris Collinsworth.

At Fox, there are two game-calling shifts behind Summerall and John Madden: Kenny Albert will work with Anthony Munoz, and Thom Brennaman will pair up with Ron Pitts.

ABC’s “Monday Night Football” crew stays intact, trying to maintain its No. 5 ranking in prime time.