Courtesy USA Today

(February 8, 2010) CBS' Super Bowl coverage was predictable. Its big-event coverage tends be more straightforward than what pops up on other networks. But in playing it straight Sunday, CBS didn't fumble, largely avoiding anything hokey — and overall was pretty good.

Game announcers Phil Simms and Jim Nantz pretty much stuck to the on-field, making it sound like they were just working another big game — albeit with extra cameras. But that was refreshing: After so much hype, you don't want the network covering the game to start, say, using Roman numerals in its graphics showing down-and-distance.

Early Sunday, Nantz suggested that, if the Saints "win today, this is going to be the feel-good story of all feel-good stories in the Super Bowl. I can't imagine anything to match. The whole country is going to celebrate with them, except for Indianapolis." That sounded a bit ominous, suggesting CBS might end up selling Larger Meaning in the game itself.

Fortunately, Nantz and Simms largely stuck to calling the game instead of selling story lines. And when they each missed a call — saying a Saints receiver hadn't kept possession of a key two-point conversion pass, when a replay challenge led to the play being ruled a completion — they were upfront about it. Simms explained it was a completed pass because the receiver lost possession only during his "second act" as he tried to get the ball across the goal line, "and we were informed during the commercial. I'm not going to say I knew that."

While CBS game coverage gamely cut to a few shots of New Orleans' French Quarter, risking on-air costume malfunctions among revelers that might have led to grave congressional inquiries, it could have spent a few more minutes on-field for postgame player interviews. Especially for the Super Bowl's all-time feel-good story.

CBS' pregame coverage didn't go overboard hyping the network's shows. (And one promo scored quite a coup: An ad for David Letterman's CBS late show that included NBC's Jay Leno.) And while no network can avoid the mandatory Super Bowl TV pregame elements required by federal law — cooking segments, symbolic shout-outs to U.S. troops overseas, features on giant NFL players helping tiny kids — CBS didn't overdo them.

Yes, CBS' Lesley Visser asked some Saints players what musical instrument they'd like to be able to play or what period of history they would visit if they could go back in time. And Shannon Sharpe worked out in a "Gatorade Performance Lab." But while it was inevitable that coverage would focus on how New Orleans is still coping with Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, James Brown's feature on how the Saints have lifted fans' spirits and a Wynton Marsalis musical tribute to the city were genuinely moving. And Bill Cowher's interview of Plaxico Burress wasn't fluff. As Boomer Esiason said afterward, "That should be a PSA for all athletes out there not to have an unlicensed handgun."

And CBS' Katie Couric, with a live interview with President Obama plopped into the middle of the pregame, didn't waste it with questions about what kind of First Dip goes with First Chips. And in the kind of network cross-promotion that comes with any Super Bowl, CBS' Face the Nation included NFL analysts and a big surprise for host Bob Scheiffer — "I never in my wildest dreams thought we'd have a blimp shot" on the show. But Scheiffer wasn't exactly correct in saying that watching the Super Bowl was a way to "enjoy something that makes absolutely no difference in the course of human events."

Not true. Given the NFL's TV ratings roll this season, and a last-minute give of weekend blizzards in some populous Northeast TV markets, the game has a shot of being the highest-rated Super Bowl since CBS drew 49.1% of U.S. households in 1982. So, it did make a difference: It provided a huge lead-in for the debut of CBS' Undercover Boss reality series.

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