Dolphins
Rounding up the NFL rights-holders after an offseason of roster tumult:
NBC
• What's on: Sunday night games, plus the Thursday night opener (Giants-Washington on Sept. 4). NBC also has Super Bowl XLIII.
• What's new:Dan Patrick joins Football Night in America, reuniting with former ESPN ''tag-team partner'' Keith Olbermann.
• Strengths: Not all reunions and sequels work, but there is no reason Olbermann and Patrick shouldn't reproduce the witty banter that distinguished their work on SportsCenter from 1992-97. . . . NBC has the best play-by-play voice in the business ( Al Michaels) and arguably the best studio analyst ( Cris Collinsworth). . . . NBC has a great schedule, with 14 of the 16 games featuring at least one 2007 playoff team and 11 of the 16 featuring two.
• Question mark: Is it necessary to have seven announcers on a pregame show? With Patrick and Olbermann handling most of the highlights, will Bob Costas -- who advocated the hiring of both -- have any kind of a meaningful role?
• Announcer team: Michaels- John Madden.
FOX
• What's on: Sunday afternoon road games of NFC teams, plus Dallas-Seattle on Thanksgiving.
• What's new: Former Giants star Michael Strahan (who, on Monday, was rumored as possibly returning to the Giants) was hired to join Curt Menefee, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long and Jimmy Johnson on the pregame show. Former Ravens coach Brian Billick, hired this past spring, will work with Thom Brennaman in a two-man booth on Sundays, when Fox has seven games, and occasionally with others in a three-man booth.
• Strengths: Information man Jay Glazer was the NFL's best last fall, and the pregame show remains the ratings leader.
• Question mark: Will a five-man pregame set work, or will Bradshaw & Co. shout over each other and share ''inside jokes,'' something they have done too often at times? Bradshaw needs to extract insight from Strahan by asking good questions, not acting like the class clown. And Strahan needs to display Tiki Barber-esque candor.
• Announcing teams:Joe Buck- Troy Aikman; Kenny Albert- Daryl Johnston- Tony Siragusa; Dick Stockton- Brian Baldinger; Sam Rosen- Tim Ryan; Matt Vasgersian- J.C. Pearson; Ron Pitts- Tony Boselli; Brennaman-Billick.
CBS
• What's on: Sunday afternoon road games of AFC teams, plus Tennessee-Detroit on Thanksgiving.
• What's new: Dan Fouts rejoins CBS and will join Dick Enberg and Randy Cross, at times, on the network's No. 3 announcing team. On other weeks, he will work on the seventh team.
• Strengths: CBS has deeper depth of talent on its game-announcer teams than Fox, especially the No. 2 team of Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf. . . . The pregame show was its best ever last season, with Bill Cowher as forthright as could have been expected, and Charley Casserly's information segment newsy and timely.
• Question mark: Was adding Fouts really necessary? Enberg and Cross were fine on their own, and Steve Beuerlein is serviceable on the No. 7 team.
• Announcing teams:Jim Nantz- Phil Simms; Gumbel-Dierdorf; Enberg-Cross (and Fouts at times); Kevin Harlan- Rich Gannon; Ian Eagle- Solomon Wilcots; Gus Johnson- Steve Tasker; Don Criqui or Bill Macatee with Fouts or Beuerlein.
ESPN
• What's on: Monday night games, including an opening-week doubleheader: Vikings-Packers and Broncos-Raiders on Sept. 8.
• What's new:Cris Carter replaces Emmitt Smith on the set of Sunday Countdown, and succeeds Dolphins executive Bill Parcells on Monday Countdown. Trent Dilfer joins as a contributor on Monday Countdown and other programming.
• Strengths: Carter will be an enormous improvement over Smith. The Mike Tirico- Tony Kornheiser- Ron Jaworski team had some good moments last season, though Kornheiser still relies too much on broad-brush generalizations.
• Question mark: Considering ESPN is paying $1.1 billion for Monday night rights and NBC $550 million for Sunday night rights, why does ESPN continue to get the vastly inferior schedule?
• Announcer team: Tirico-Kornheiser-Jaworski.
NFL NETWORK
• What's on: Seven Thursday night games, beginning with Cleveland-Denver on Nov. 6 and including Arizona-Philadelphia on Thanksgiving; and one Saturday night game (Baltimore-Dallas) on Dec. 20.
• What's new: Giants radio announcer Bob Papa replaces Bryant Gumbel on play-by-play.
• Strengths: Collinsworth gives the package a first-rate analyst, and Papa will be better than Gumbel.
• Question mark: Will the channel ever find a way into more homes? More than 60 percent of the country doesn't get NFL Network, and the league stubbornly refuses to allow cable systems to place it on a tier.
The McClatchy Company