How to fix insufferable NFL pregame shows and make them worthy of attention

We’ve been together too long to hide this:I harbor a desire to produce an NFL pregame show, one radically different from all the others as it would be — get this — interesting, entertaining, thoughtful and leave viewers with something worth knowing and to remember.I figure that decades of hours and millions of dollars wasted would be easily cured.Crazy, I know.I’d start by stuffing it with good stuff, the kind seen for a few seconds early this month during a Fox telecast.It was home video of Cowboys’ center Cooper Beebe, hardly a lock to make the cut but now the team’s starter — a position he’d never played — snapping footballs to his mother in someone’s backyard.I’d sit them down, together, chat them up to present something both inexpensive and worthy of attention and lasting memory.I’d send a crew to follow veteran NFL umpire Carl Paganelli, a federal probation officer.

You wouldn’t watch that as opposed to six guys talking about where the Bears rank against the run after Week 2, then threatening/warning us with, “We’ll be back at the half”?How about a weekly special to identify and interview the most modest, team-first, polite young gentleman on every team for future and rooting interests among civilized viewers who have no major gambling interest in games?Once the games begin, the network can revert to its focus, live and in replays, on those most eager to degrade their sport with post-play immodesties for attention that now, for some sustaining mindlessness, TV guarantees.And the end of every show would include “The Most Ridiculous Celebration of the Week.” Sunday’s would highlight the Browns’ defense, last week against the Giants, gathering in the end zone to perform a rehearsed celebration — that’s what today’s pros now practice during practice — after a TD that was called back for a penalty on that same defense.And I’d close it with a graphic displaying the final score: The 0-2 Giants beat the favored Browns...