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ABC hopes for end to MNF's blowouts

ABC's Monday Night Football airs its 500th episode Monday and is crossing its fingers it goes better than the previous nine broadcasts this season.

If not, no one will be around at halftime when the television institution reveals the greatest MNF game of all time and other surprises. MNF clearly has lost its luster due mostly to the saturation of football via cable but also has hit a run of bad luck -- lopsided games.

John Madden is the best analyst in the game, but his X's and O's approach and goofy analysis are hardly stimulating nor smart enough to keep people tuned in past halftime of dreadfully boring contests. "The lopsided games you can't really do anything about," producer Fred Gaudelli said. "It's just a happenstance and, unfortunately for us, a weekly happenstance."

The average margin of victory this year for MNF games is 15, and all but one game (San Francisco over Seattle) have been decided by 11 or more points.

Even worse are the halftime blowouts, of which there have been 16-, 28-, 10-, 18- and 14-point leads. Every team that led by those margins except one won by that margin or more.

The reason to stay up past midnight then?

Maybe MNF's luck will change. It gets a potentially great matchup Monday with Denver and Oakland, and the Raiders have been Monday's definitive team for decades.

KEEP PTI: During a conference call this week, John Elway and Emmitt Smith said their favorite part of MNF growing up was Howard Cosell's halftime NFL highlights.

With endless highlights provided all day and night Sunday, there is no need for such today. But giving viewers three minutes of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption was a fabulous touch Monday. We hope ABC will make this permanent.

BUCS ON TV: Keyshawn Johnson on the Jerry Springer Show? Okay, not quite.

But the Bucs receiver will be on The Best Damn Sports Show, Period tonight, and Springer is sitting in for Tom Arnold as a host. The show airs at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Fox Sports Net.

And at 11 a.m. Sunday on ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown's usually hilarious "The Mayne Event," the off-beat and deadpanning Kenny Mayne shows viewers what the Bucs do with the pirate ship at Raymond James Stadium when they don't have a game.

THEY SAID IT: "Like another cable giant, MTV, ESPN seems to have forgotten its original mandate. Remember when you could tune in to ESPN and actually have a good chance of seeing sports? Now, thanks to an unfriendly economy, punishing rights fees and a programming department led by one Mark Shapiro, who apparently thought the debate team counted as a varsity sport in high school, ESPN is far more interested in showing you people talking about sports rather than sports itself. The network has become the Worldwide Leader in Hot Air." -- Robert Weintraub, former ESPN employee writing on slate.com.

AROUND THE DIAL: NBC earned a 5.3 overnight rating for Saturday's Boston College upset of Notre Dame, making it the day's highest rated sports program, according to Nielsen Media Research. ... The Jaguars' loss to the Giants on Sunday night did not lead in its own city. Saturday's Georgia-Florida game outrated it 29.1-25.6. It was the first time the Jags weren't the No. 1-rated television show of the week in Jacksonville. ... The Sunshine Network provides live coverage of the Florida High School Activities Association's announcement of the football playoff pairings at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

-- Information from other news sources was used in this report.

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