Watchdog

To the surprise of absolutely, positively no one, the NFL will be sticking with the Giants-Cowboys game that had been penciled in for Sunday night, Dec. 14 on NBC.

I'm going to go out on a limb and make a prediction right here, right now, people:

As long as the final margin is 10 points or fewer, it will be the highest-rated regular-season NBC game of 2008.

Tiki Barber has some harsh things to say about Donovan McNabb's knowledge of NFL rules in an interview with Bloomberg News, via Awful Announcing.

This sort of cluelessness from players is nothing new, of course.

I just heard Frank Gifford talking to Sirius XM's Chris Russo about how many Giants were unaware in 1958 that there were overtime periods tin NFL playoff games.

The oddest thing about this is McNabb is a sharp guy.

The first time I interviewed him was at Manley Field House, when Syracuse had a news conference to preview its appearance in the 1996 Final Four.

I've always found him interesting. Alas, he never is going to live this one down.

Al Michaels bravely referenced a popular, competing show on another network during NBC's Cowboys vs. Redskins coverage.

In discussing Tony Romo downplaying the desperation Dallas faced Sunday night, Michaels said, "The only desperation on Sunday night is on Wisteria Lane."

For those of you not in the small minority of crossover viewers between Sunday night football and "Desperate Housewives," Wisteria Lane is where Mrs. Tony Parker lives.

(UPDATE: SNF comfortably beat DH in the overnight ratings, 13.5 to 10.2. Take that, Mrs. Parker!)

I wrote an article for the Sunday newspaper about the 40th anniversary of the Heidi Game, coming up Monday.

There are are two good video overviews of the incident above.

Click below for a shorter clip from famed WatchDog commenter John Philips that includes David Brinkley discussing the snafu as well as Curt Gowdy's calls of the final two touchdowns.

The NFL and NBC have stuck with the penciled-in Sunday night matchups for the first two weeks of flexible scheduling. What about Bears-Vikings Nov. 30?

Hmm. That game looks better now than it did a while back, but what if NBC opts to peruse other possibilities that day? Forget Redskins-Giants. Fox protected that one. Same for Steelers-Pats, taken off the table to CBS.

Broncos-Jets? Hmm. If the Jets win Thursday, and if the Bears and Vikings lose Sunday, and if you have tickets to that Nov. 30 Broncos-Jets game, it is possible you will be showing up late for school or work Monday morning.

At least a dozen readers have alerted me that "The Office" episode Thursday night had a significant Cornell component. I didn't see it live; I'm more of a "30 Rock" man.

But here is the episode, via the magic of the series of tubes that is the Internet. Cornell is given credit for the development of cabbage as we know it. Cool.

Speaking of NBC entertainment shows that have nothing in particular to do with sports, "Saturday Night Live" is going to feature Sen. John McCain this weekend. Read it about here.

There are rumors Obama might appear, too, apparently

So what? Chris Berman has them both Monday night!

Members of WatchDog Nation can see the New York City Marathon live on Ch. 4 Sunday, but NBC asked me to tell the rest of you you can watch it on NBCSports.com as well as on Universal Sports, if your local carrier features that TV channel.

NBC will do a highlight wrapup at 3 p.m.

I covered the 1993 Marathon and developed an unfortunate crush on women's winner Uta Pippig.

In 1998, Ms. Pippig was cleared of some sort of doping charge by the German athletics people.

She since has become a U.S. citizen. Welcome.

A New York comedienne named Amy Borkowsky has a fine idea to generate both publicity and companionship:

Buying an ad on the Super Bowl in hopes of landing a suitable husband.

The strange thing is I read about this in the L.A. Times, located far from Ms. Borkowsky's Manhattan home.

Whatever. Cute idea. Here is her Web site.

If this were an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," it would end with her spending the $3 million on the ad, then having Mr. Right miss it because he visited the men's room during a timeout.

Check out this story from Syosset's own Len Shapiro in The Washington Post: John Madden is missing a game, for the first time . . . ever.

Apparently John and Al Michaels mentioned this on the air Sunday night. I didn't hear it, but Len did and followed up.

NBC swears there is nothing more to it than Dick Ebersol wanting to give Madden a week off so he could avoid traveling (by bus, of course) from West Coast to East for the Seahawks-Bucs game.

The Sunday after next is a bye for NBC because of the World Series, so this gives Madden a two-weekend break at his northern California home.

Cris Collinsworth will fill in for the big guy this coming Sunday night.

Why is this woman smiling?

NBC's Sunday night Eagles-Bears tilt attracted an average of 12.3 percent of American homes in major markets, besting the season premiere of "Desperate Housewives" by about 10 percent.

If there is one overriding lesson I have learned in my three years on the beat, it's this:

The NFL is really, really popular.

Holy Fey!

Sunday night's Cowboys-Packers game obliterated the Emmy Awards in viewership, 22.2 million to 12.3 million.

It would have been even more lopsided if many New York sports fans were not distracted by baseball at the time.

I don't know what to make of this. Discuss among yourselves.

By the way, the final national rating for ESPN indicated the game averaged 3.1 million viewers, up 162 percent from the comparable Astros-Cardinals game last year.