After a two-year stint as a color analyst on ABC's "Monday Night Football" (he worked with Al Michaels) and 10 years on ABC's Saturday college games (he was paired with the great Keith Jackson), Fouts is back in the network spotlight.

He worked with a variety of play-by-play men last season, but Fouts now will spend the entire NFL season on CBS with Dick Enberg. The pair will call Chargers home games the next two Sundays, this week against the Baltimore Ravens and next week against the Miami Dolphins.

"I have a chance to work with a legend, and I'm fired up," said Fouts, the former Chargers quarterback who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993. "Working with Dick, working NFL games makes me extremely happy.

"I worked a couple of games with him last year, and it was great. I really admire his style and class. There aren't too many men in this business better than Dick Enberg."

Fouts began his network TV career with ABC in 1997. Over the years, he has called games with Verne Lundquist, Dick Stockton, James Brown, Brad Nessler, Jim Nantz, Tim Ryan and Joe Buck. Fouts' credits include a Super Bowl telecast, the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl.

Enberg, who worked the last few seasons on CBS with Randy Cross, admires Fouts, too.

"Dan's great," said Enberg, a San Diego resident. "I had a chance to work with him a couple of times last year and really enjoyed it."

For Enberg, life couldn't be better. He recently finished calling the U.S. Open tennis championships in New York for CBS; now he gets two NFL home games.

"I love calling tennis," Enberg said. "So to go from that to the NFL is as good as it gets. And to get a pair of Chargers games to start my season is great. In the broadcast profession, you travel so much. So any time you can drive your own car to a game instead of getting on an airplane, it's a good week.

Fouts, who lives in Oregon, has to board a plane every week.

"But coming to San Diego is still special," he said. "Coming to San Diego never gets old. And I think we have a couple of good games to call."

While Enberg was busy with tennis, Fouts called the Chargers' exhibition game in Atlanta. And he watched intently as two offensive linemen went down Monday against the Raiders in Oakland.

"That was a good, gutty, gritty win for the Chargers," Fouts said. "But the question is: At what cost?

"With Baltimore coming in with a good, attacking defense, this should be a very interesting game."

The good and the bad

Certainly, Cris Collinsworth isn't a broadcasting rookie. He knew exactly what he was doing when he agreed to replace John Madden and team with Michaels on NBC's "Sunday Night Football."

And though he's very different from Madden, Collinsworth was excellent on last week's Bears-Packers game.

On the other hand, is ESPN's stable of announcers so thin that the network had to assign Mike Greenberg, Mike Golic and Steve Young to Monday's telecast of the Chargers-Raiders?

Young is normally pretty darn good. He has great insights into the game and isn't afraid to voice an opinion. He was nearly silent last week.

Greenberg is so far from being a polished play-by-play man that it's a joke.

What I finally realized it that this wasn't about getting a good announcing team to the Chargers-Raiders game. It was all about promoting ESPN TV and Radio's "Mike & Mike in the Morning" show that features Greenberg and Golic.

Golic has stated that he'd like a permanent spot on "Monday Night Football." Based on that game, he has some work to do.