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This is what I’m thinking:
* Buffalo Bills fans may be getting ahead of themselves to think the team’s 3-0 start will eventually lead to a game being flexed to prime time on NBC’s Sunday Night Football.
But, hey, who am I, to dash such hopes?
So I looked ahead to NBC’s schedule to see what game could possibly be flexed to SNF when the network is allowed to move games into prime time.
The flex window is from Nov. 20 to Jan.1.
Looking ahead, the most unattractive games presently on NBC’s schedule are a Nov. 27 game between Pittsburgh and winless Kansas City and a Dec. 4 game between winless Indianapolis without Peyton Manning and the New England Patriots.
The Bills road game on Nov. 27 with the New York Jets currently looks like the most likely game to be flexed even though the Jets already are scheduled to have five prime games. The Dec. 4 home game with Tennessee doesn’t look that attractive.
If the Bills Jan. 1 game at New England has playoff implications for both teams, it also could be a flex game candidate. Of course, that’s if the Bills stay hot and the 3-0 start isn’t a mirage.
* Did you hear CBS insider Charley Casserly speculate on what Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick was worth on the pregame show last Sunday before the Bills beat the Pats?
Casserly said the Bills would have to pay Fitz $14 million or more if they made him a franchise player next season. Casserly added that Arizona quarterback Kevin Kolb signed a contract worth $11 million a season. The former NFL executive for the Washington Redskins and Houston Texans added that he thinks Kolb isn’t as good as Fitz.
*You might have thought the Bills 3-0 start would mean CBS would send one of its top play-by-play men to Sunday’s game with the Bengals. CBS assigned former Bills star Steve Tasker as the analyst alongside play-by-play man Andrew Catalon. Who? Catalon made his name as the sports director of WNYT-TV in Albany. He also worked the curling event in the 2010 Olympics for NBC and has done a preseason game for the New York Giants. He’s a graduate of Syracuse University so I expect him to be very good.
CBS is using its No. 1 team — Jim Nantz and Phil Simms — on the Bills game against the New York Giants on Oct. 16. That has as much or more to do with the Giants and their No.1 market than it does about the Bills.
*Just when I thought that CBS announcer Marv Albert had improved since his performance in the Bills opener against Kansas City, he had trouble distinguishing Bills receivers Donald Jones. Stevie Johnson and Namaan Roosevelt during the Bills win over New England. They all wear numbers in the teens so I’m thinking that Marv either needs some new glasses or a new spotter in the booth.
* I caught the “Bill O’Loughlin Show with Lydia Dominick” on Channel 2 for the first time Thursday and didn’t recognize Dominick, probably because of all the makeup she was wearing. She looked much more sophisticated than I remember when she hosted Channel 2’s “Lunch Time with the Classics.”
*Channel 4 reporter Lorey Schultz said this week that she didn’t realize the job she is taking with Mayor Brown was even available until mid-August. That’s a little surprising since former Channel 4 reporter Mylous Hairston was believed to be a candidate for the job when he left the station months earlier.
* Here’s a rarity: I agree with the WGR sports guys who praised the ESPN documentary “Catching Hell” about all the abuse Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman received after he instinctively and innocently went for a foul ball in a sixth-game Cubs playoff loss to the Florida Marlins and prevented Cubs outfielder Moises Alou from catching it. The Cubs subsequently lost game 7 to the Marlins, who went to the World Series.
“Hell” was a helluva story even without Bartman’s participation. You had to feel for him and feel a little ashamed about what the media did to him and another playoff goat in the documentary, Boston’s Bill Buckner.
Buckner, who committed an error in a World Series game with the Mets, has since recovered and even poked fun at the embarrassing moment in a 2011 episode of HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
pergament@msn.com
Alan Pergament was the television critic for The Buffalo News for 28 years. He currently is an adjunct professor at Buffalo State College and Medaille College, teaching courses in communications. He also writes a monthly column on the media for Buffalo Spree magazine.
