The Difference Between The Nicolette Sheridan and Janet Jackson Incidents
For the record, I missed the opening to the most recent Monday Night Football (I'm usually on the road at that time), but you can't help but hearing about it.

The last time that a football game generated so much controversy was, of course, during the CBS Super Bowl halftime telecast a few months ago.

Viacom could legitimately plead that they had no idea what Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake were going to do. The same cannot be said of the previously-filmed material that ABC used.

The tirades have begun:

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Sometimes you have to wonder what the geniuses at the major network sports divisions are imbibing or inhaling when they make critical decisions about what we watch.

Take the opening segment before the start of the Monday Night Football game on ABC between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles.

Just who was actually responsible for the synergy -- oh, how I despise that word -- that produced a way-over-the-top fictional locker room scene with Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens and one of the stars of the network's new hit prime time show, "Desperate Housewives?"

Which brain surgeon wrote the steamy dialogue between the two, with Nicolette Sheridan, wearing only a white towel over her birthday suit, telling Owens her house just burned down and she was looking for a place to take a hot shower?

Which rocket scientist conceived the plot that had Owens leering at the lovely lady before his eyes in the supposed minutes before the actual kickoff, then saying his team would "have to play this one without me," moments before Sheridan jumped into his arms?...

Which nuclear physicist had final approval of the piece before it made it onto the airwaves, and what was he/she thinking would be the reaction to this almost soft-porn display?...

[Y]ou'd have to point the largest finger toward Monday Night Football producer Fred Gaudelli, a long-time network veteran who really should have known better. Then again, we don't know if ABC Sports executive producer Mike Pearl, or Lorne Matthews, senior vice president for programming, also had a hand in this, not to mention all those great minds in the entertainment division.

I'd say there's plenty of blame to go around, most of all the lethal synergistic combination of the sports and entertainment division teaming as one to concoct a pure piece of titillating trash designed to do one thing -- create more buzz that could translate into higher ratings for Monday Night Football and Desperate Housewives the next time they're on the schedule.

One would surmise that the deep thinkers responsible for this incident might have recalled the fallout from last January's R-rated Super Bowl halftime show, when Justin Timberlake's hand ripped Janet Jackson's costume and bared her right breast to a nationwide audience that tuned in for a football game and got a quick peep show to go with it.

As a result, the Federal Communications Commission fined the 20 CBS-owned stations $550,000 for an episode CBS still honestly believes wasn't its fault. Oh, please.

A cynic might say that the ABC people who concocted the MNF introduction earlier this week knew exactly what they were doing. After all, $550,000 would be a very small price to pay for all that, pardon the expression, exposure in front of one of the highest-rated audiences of the week, so why not push the envelope and see what happens?...

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At least one person found the segment racially offensive:

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Reaction ranged from amusement to anger. Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy found it racially offensive.

"To me that's the first thing I thought of as an African-American," Dungy said Wednesday.

"I think it's stereotypical in looking at the players, and on the heels of the Kobe Bryant incident I think it's very insensitive. I don't think that they would have had Bill Parcells or Andy Reid or one of the owners involved in that," he added, a reference to the coaches in the game.

ABC's intro showed Sheridan wearing only a towel and provocatively asking Owens to skip the game for her as the two stood alone in a locker room. She drops the towel and jumps into Owens' arms. Owens is black and Sheridan is white.

"If that's what we have to do to get ratings, I'd rather not get them," Dungy said. "I realize that ratings pays us in this league, but if that's what we have to do, I'm willing to take a pay cut."

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