Post by TheShadow on Nov 23, 2006 10:22:46 GMT -5
www.mercurynews.com
By John Ryan
Mercury News
The NFL Network, which we discussed Monday regarding its cable war, insists it has hours of quality programming outside the games. Debatable; it continues to employ Deion Sanders. But one promising series makes its debut Friday.
``America's Game'' counts down the top 20 Super Bowl teams with one-hour documentaries, beginning with the Los Angeles Raiders at 5:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Friday. Any fan who sits mesmerized late at night for those NFL Films half-hour specials on Super Bowl VII will love this show.
Its particular hook: According to Howie Long, after he was selected for the Hall of Fame in 2000, Al Davis asked him to come out of retirement.
Long says Davis ``called me up after I had been selected to the Hall of Fame and said, `I know you're in great shape.' At this point I was 40 years old. He said, `I want you to come back to the Raiders. I just need 15 snaps, that's it, just rush the passer. No Hall of Famer has ever come back; you'll shock the world.' I thought about it for a second, and then I said, `You're crazy!' ''
Just think about it. Long and Randy Moss could be sharing turf today, and Randy could have told Howie to ``put some pads on'' in the locker room instead of on the radio!
• So if that's how Davis thinks . . . paging Rich Gannon, Tim Brown, Mervyn Fernandez, Napoleon Kaufman, Dave Casper and John Madden: Report to work ASAP.
• Interesting exchange Sunday on Fox. They were debating replay reviews when Terry Bradshaw said, ``If it wasn't for the millions of dollars being spent on gambling on the NFL games, we wouldn't have half that junk.'' To which Long replied, ``We wouldn't have the `Immaculate Reception' if they got it right.''
``Exactly,'' Bradshaw said.