Well, I went back-and-forth on whether to start Carson Palmer or Eli Manning in my fantasy league.

I went with Eli.

It would seem I made a grievous error in that regard.

John Madden and Al Michaels mentioned the former Rams/USC Coach John Robinson has a blog and was supposedly blogging the game tonight.  However, there was no mention of a url and the NBC sports site does not feature it.All

of this raising that philosophical question:  if a person blogs, but know ones knows the url, does anyone gives a rat’s posterior about what the blogger blogs?

Ah well.  It is a sign of the times that blogging gets mentioned on national tv, let alone during an NFL game.

…or does it seem that NFL games this season is more about the refs and their yellow hankies than it is about the play on the field?

Certainly the refs are going flag-happy in the Sunday Night game.

And it hasn’t been just in this game, or against teams I am rooting for, that I have noticed this over the last two weeks.

On Sunday evening I wondered if ABC was on The Path to Mediocre Ratings by airing the Path to 9/11 opposite the Manning Bowl.

USAT provides the rather unsurprising answer: NFL tops ABC’s edited 9/11 miniseries

The movie was beaten soundly in the ratings by the regular-season debut of NBC’s Sunday Night Football, matching Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts against younger brother Eli of the New York Giants. The National Football League game had an estimated 20.7 million viewers, while The Path to 9/11 had 13 million, according to Nielsen Media Research. The ABC movie did, however, beat CBS’ third airing of a 9/11 documentary, which was seen by an estimated 10.6 million people, Nielsen said.

Indeed, I also wondering if President Bush’s speech to the nation on 9/11 would get much attention, given it was up against an MNF double-header.  Indeed, there were a lot of eyballs on ESPN that night:

ESPN drew 8.2% of U.S. TV households, translating to the broadcast network equivalent of an 8.4 national rating, for Minnesota Vikings-Washington Redskins. That doesn’t include ratings on over-the-air stations in the teams’ home markets.

ESPN’s 9.2 million households made it the second-biggest audience for a cable show ever, trailing only the 11.2 million households drawn to the never-to-be-forgotten Ross Perot-Al Gore faceoff over NAFTA on Larry King Live in 1993.

ESPN then got 7.1% — again, not counting home-market TV — for the San Diego Chargers shutting out the Oakland Raiders.

ESPN’s action in the 8-11 ET hours averaged 10.5 million households. Meaning, ESPN — yes, the ESPN where you’ve ogled Swedish strongmen hauling cars — was America’s most-watched prime-time channel. (In second: ABC with its Path to 9/11 drama.)

I don’t have numbers on how many saw the president, however.

Given all the brouhaha over the Path to 9/11 Miniseries one has to wonder what the ratings will be like, given that tonight it goes up against the Manning Bowl and then tomorrow night against an MNF double-header.  It is as if ABC drummed up the controvery just to get the free press.

And in my ongoing attempt to be known as an HD snob, I would note that the program isn’t even in true HD widescreen-for shame.

Ok, up and until today I wasn’t keen on the idea that Tony Romo should be the starting QB in Dallas.  But, 3 INTs later and a loss, I must say that I am ready to give Romo a try.

I am glad football is back, but this hasn’t exactly been my teams’ weekend.

(And my headline is only semi-tongue-in cheek).

Via Reuters: Bush to give address Monday on 9/11 anniversary

While I understand it is 911, but while I noted the President’s political acumen the other day, do you really want to try and go up against an MNF double-header?

And one seriously wonders if the White House would have planned this if MNF was still on ABC.  I mean, can you imagine the hit to the President’s popularity if he has preempted the first Monday of the NFL season?

Man, Dante Culpepper looked horrid last night.

I know it is just one game, but the folks who were picking Miami to go the Super Bowl have to be rethinking that position at this point.

…but the only word that comes to mind in watching the “music” during the Countdown to Kickoff show on NBC is:  “noise.”

(There’s also a healthy does of:  who are these people?)

Bring on the flippin’ football already!

Via ESPN:  Roethlisberger to miss opener after appendectomy

The dude is cursed.