Our weekly look at the colorful collage of NFL broadcasts for our resident stat- and map-geeks, from the mysterious folks at the506.com.
Here’s one of the best, most intricately woven broadcast maps of the 2007 season. Indy-Carolina, a 1 p.m. broadcast, draws the network’s No. 1 crew of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, but the game gets only spotty coverage around the country. Interesting to note that most of New England is being shipped Colts-Cats (though the western half of New England will get the local game, Buffalo-N.Y. Jets). Bostonians, who already have so much to complain about, would probably have revolted if forced to watch Bills-Jets instead of Colts-Anybody.
Indy-Carolina will also be broadcast to the middle of Nebraska. Go figure. If they’d only fire Bill Callahan, it would be a neat week for these Cornhuskers.
Cleveland-St. Louis gets all the attention it deserves: None outside the local markets.
Just three games on the docket, with most of the country being shipped N.Y. Giants-Miami. It would be a dog, if not for the fact it’s being played in London, which gives the game quite a bit of historic merit. The rest of the country, except for markets hosting 1 p.m. games on CBS (St. Louis, Nashville, Cincinnati and Charlotte) are split between Philly-Minnesota and the
potentially very interesting Detroit-Chicago Big Play showdown.
It’s pretty much all Washington-New England, which gets the most widespread broadcast of the week and the network’s No. 1 team of Kenny Albert (sitting in for Joe Buck) and Troy Aikman.
You can see why the game is getting so much attention: Not only is it a potentially big game pitting a dominant, star-studded AFC power against a perhaps underrated NFC contender, the only competition comes from the New Orleans-San Francisco JV game.
Ouch.
