Courtesy USA Today

(January 11, 2010) Even Dallas taking a 37-7 lead over Philadelphia midway in the third quarter Saturday night couldn't slow down the NFL's boffo TV box office. After the NFL had its most-viewed regular-season since 1990, the Cowboys blowout on NBC drew a 19.6 overnight rating — translating to 19.6% of TV households in 56 urban markets — for the best overnight for a Saturday wild-card game in a decade.

While NBC's on-air Winter Olympics promos seemed more dramatic than some of the action in the Cowboys win, NBC avoided a blowout in the Jets win at Cincinnati Saturday. It drew a 16.9 overnight, the best wild-card Game 1 in a decade.

While networks generally use their top production teams in playoffs, NBC was creative in reuniting Joe Theismann and his old Washington coach Joe Gibbs with play-by-play announcer Tom Hammond on Jets-Bengals. Hammond had some miscalls. Gibbs, who was in NBC's studio in the 1990s, didn't always handle the rhythm of game-calling — and didn't get much airtime alongside the outgoing Theismann.

But, said Theismann in an interview Sunday, "We spent three hours together and he didn't tell me to be quiet once." Which was an obvious role reversal for both: With Redskins hiring Mike Shanahan as coach, says Theismann, the team now has "one guy in charge" like "it did under" both of Gibbs' Redskins coaching eras.

Also novel: NBC had TNT's Charles Barkley on its NFL studio Saturday to promote his hosting SaturdayNight Live. Barkley said he wasn't nervous because, "well, I'm supposed to screw up" — and ended up looking confused by SNL's cue cards. But Dallas' Tony Romo, in his post-game, was on-script: "We've got to hurry this up because Dick (NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol) has got to get to Saturday Night Live" — where Barkley "probably won't be funny."

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