Several Roster Changes, New Game Plans In Booths

The National Football League is so successful on television that it resists change. During games, nothing fresh will pop on the three networks and two cable channels that televise games, unless you deem shrinking the coaches’ 40-second timeouts to 30 seconds as news.

(“We may save 4 minutes a game,” says Val Pinchbeck of the NFL.)

The largest shift - not huge - probably is NBC doubling the length of its pregame show from 30 to 60 minutes, with a 9 a.m. start. It is hardly a response to the public or advertisers’ demands, but rather a reaction to Fox Network’s on-going 1-hour show and ESPN’s decision to make permanent this fall its late-season experiment last year, a 90-minute Sunday pregame kicking off at 8:30 a.m.

None of these programs grab large chunks of audiences. Combined, Fox and NBC attract 15 million viewers. Games that follow on the two networks attract three times as many.

NBC’s pregame producer, Ricky Diamond, enthuses about twice the time available for talk and video. “The half-hour show (23 minutes of air time) was painstaking, for the things you had to leave out,” Diamond said.

There will be more time for exchanges among anchor Greg Gumbel, co-analysts Mike Ditka and Joe Gibbs plus Cris Collinsworth, who will move from the field to studio, replacing Joe Montana, who was an indifferent broadcaster.

There also will be time for Bob Costas to return to the NFL after his baseball commitment ends, with lengthy interviews.

If there is news to justify it, Diamond said Will McDonough will have two segments during the 60 minutes. And visits to announcers at game sites will not be merely as some have been, cameo weather reports.

At Fox there also will be a key studio change. Ronnie Lott, a television rookie, will succeed Jimmy Johnson, gone to Miami as the Dolphins’ coach. Johnson, similar to Montana, never poured himself into TV work. Yet the change may not be that significant because of the dominance of anchor Terry Bradshaw. Also returning will be Howie Long, a jock rarity, able to talk as well as he played.

ESPN’s “Countdown” program will get the jump with its 8:30 a.m. start with the returning quintet of Tom Jackson, Joe Theismann, Chris Mortensen, Sterling Sharpe and Chris Berman, with the latter doubling on ABC’s “Monday Night Football” halftime show this season.

“Countdown” has been so lively it cut into the two network audiences, and with a 30-minute running start, it may inflict even more damage.

But it is not ESPN’s top NFL program. That honor goes to the 90-minute “Prime Monday” at 4:30 p.m. with deep dissection of the MNF game upcoming in a rambling format overseen by anchor smoothie Mike Tirico, aided by a three-way journalist roundtable strong on opinions and pro football gossip. Its return Labor Day night will lead into the Cowboys-Bears game.

TNT will make a bold move in its 1-hour “Pro Football Tonight” that will precede its Sunday night game. It will run a continuous crawl of statistics from games during the day in a direct appeal to Fantasy League participants. The crawl will be updated during the 45-minute postgame show.

Vince Cellini will return as host and Mark May as analyst. Randall Cunningham has hung them up and will step up to replace Warren Moon after TNT decided against using an active player.

There will also be a novelty on TNT’s postgame program. Norm Chad, the satirical TV critic whose NFL column appears in The Spokesman-Review on Fridays, will offer a commentary each week based on games earlier in the day.