Still, Veterans Day falls in football season and TV football each year usually includes some on-air nods to our troops. But with the holiday coming Wednesday, TV football now seems unusually full of salutes the U.S. military — led by Fox's two-hour NFL pregame being staged from the Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan Sunday.

Jay Glazer, who along with the rest of the Fox cast wore desert fatigues on a stage in front of military personnel, offered last-minute player injury updates and suggested we all "make no mistake about it — the bad guys are out there and they're gunning for us." Fox's HowieLong, after picking Minnesota for the Super Bowl, noted "there are fools around the world who would question the ability of this group of men and women to rise to the occasion like so many previous generations in America."

Said Fox's Terry Bradshaw: "It's about family. When you look up here, you see a Fox family and that means we love and care about one another. This is the Fox family and you are our military family. The bottom line is that it's all about love. We love you."

ESPN is in the midst of military salutes ranging from Air Force jumpers parachuting with the mascot head analyst Lee Corso donned for his game pick at Saturday's Army-Air Force game to ESPN2's Mike and Mike in the Morning broadcasting from the USS New York Tuesday. CBS' Bill CowherSunday recalled visiting U.S. troops in Iraq in the summer: "The NFL on Sundays means so much to them. For three hours, they can kind of escape the reality of where they are."

Supporting our troops without getting into the policies that deploy them can present a fine line. Marie Tillman, widow of former Arizona Cardinals player Pat Tillman, who enlisted in the U.S. Army after the Sept. 11 attacks and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan, talked to ESPN in footage airing Sunday and today for what's billed as her first TV interview. Said Marie, who will also appear live on tonight's ESPN NFL pregame show: "I was definitely angry about the circumstances surrounding his death and the fact we weren't told the truth."

Not that kind of stuff that usually pops up in TV sports yak.