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July 25, 2006 The 2006 NFL season is already promising to be one full of intrigue, suspense, and drama. That’s nothing new, but football fans will, as always, have a few things to look forward to and watch out for during the fall. In Part I of my NFL Season Preview, I’ll touch on just some of the changes that will shape how the league functions this year. 1. There’ll be a new sheriff in town…eventually. With commissioner Paul Tagliabue stepping down in August, after 17 seasons at the helm, the NFL should have a new head honcho when regular-season play begins in September. Among the leading candidates current league employees Roger Goodell, Eric Gruber and Jeff Pash, as well as Atlanta Falcons general manager Rich McKay. Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice, who has made no secret of her desire for the job, has already indicated that she wouldn’t take the job right now if it was offered to her. And thankfully, Florida governor Jeb Bush declined interest in the position. Whoever takes over for Tagliabue will have some big shoes to fill. Despite the fact that Los Angeles lost two pro football teams during his term, Tagliabue granted franchises to longtime league stalwarts in Cleveland and Houston—the Cleveland team retained the Browns name and records when the original franchise moved to Baltimore--granted new franchises to Charlotte and Jacksonville, and helped finance the construction of 17 new stadiums for league franchises. The NFL was also the only major North American sports league that did not suffer a work stoppage. 2. The Peacock picks up the ball again. After broadcasting Monday-night games for 36 seasons, ABC gave up the package to focus on other types of programming. Although corporate cousin ESPN will pick up the Monday-night telecast, Sunday nights will belong to NBC, which gets the NFL again after losing Sunday-afternoon AFC games to CBS after the 1998 season. After a couple of disastrous seasons in the primetime ratings, the Peacock is looking to restore some luster to its feathers with this plum, which should do well against CBS’s crime-oriented lineup and ABC’s block of dramas. Under the new contract, which runs from 2006 until 2011, NBC will broadcast three pre-season games in primetime, the NFL Kickoff Game (which is a Thursday-night contest), 16 Sunday-night games, and two games on Wild Card Weekend. NBC will also host Super Bowl XLIII in 2009 and Super Bowl XLVI in 2012, as well as the AFC-NFC Pro Bowl game the following weekend of the Super Bowl telecasts. As part of the new NFL broadcast agreements, the Super Bowl network also gets to host the Pro Bowl during the same season. 3. Finally, games with some meaning! One of the reasons Disney decided to get rid of Monday Night Football was because so many late-season games turned out to be dogs. If it looked great on paper in March, it likely had no playoff implications in December. Both the NFL and ABC got burned repeatedly on this issue. New rules on flexible scheduling will allow the NFL to move one game each week during seven of the last eight weeks of the season from Sunday afternoon to Sunday night in prime time. (Games scheduled for Thursdays, Saturdays and Mondays are not eligible to be moved under this plan.) The idea is to reward teams in playoff contention with exposure and allow both the league and the network to make some money in the process. The NFL will also continue to have discretion in moving early games to a later time, to give more exposure to teams in the playoff hunt. 4. A new Thanksgiving tradition? Dallas and Detroit have made pro football on Thanksgiving an American tradition. This season, after the Lions do battle with Miami and the Cowboys take on Tampa Bay, the Kansas City Chiefs get into the act when they host the Denver Broncos in a Thanksgiving nightcap. The game will be one of eight to be broadcast on the NFL Network during the last six weeks of the regular season. 5. Keeping things close to home. The success of the American Bowl exhibition series of games in cities such as Berlin, London, Mexico City and Tokyo proved that us Yanks aren’t the only ones interested in football of the prolate persuasion. NFL Europe League has become a proving ground for young talent, and last year a regular-season game was played outside the United States for the first time. But for only the second time in the last 20 years, there will be no American Bowl exhibition. With the exception of the Hall of Fame Game, which is played in Canton, Ohio, the only scheduled neutral-site exhibitions are to take place in Shreveport, Louisiana and Jackson, Mississippi. Both games feature the New Orleans Saints as the “home” team. 6. “The Duke” is back. Sorry, John Wayne fans, but that’s not “The Duke” I’m referring to. I’m talking about the NFL’s official game ball, originally introduced to the league by Wilson in 1941 and named in honor of Wellington Mara, the son of New York Giants owner Tim Mara. “The Duke” was the league’s official ball until the AFL/NFL merger in 1970, when it was retired in favor of the familiar F1010 model. (The F1010 ball was sold directly to the teams, while its nearly-identical twin, the F1000, was sold in stores to the general public.) With the passing of Wellington Mara last October, the NFL decided to restore “The Duke” to the field, making it the official game ball for a second time on May 1. Coming up in Part II will be a look at key match-ups to watch out for in the pre-season and the regular season. ------------ About the author: Claxton Graham has written over 100 articles for Useless Knowledge. He has also written the unpublished novels The Writer's Nightmare and Santa's Sleigh Is Missing. He works as a business analyst. Email: scifiwriter8502@email.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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