Hot Air: After struggles with Lions, Millen resumes career as TV analyst
11:51 AM CDT on Saturday, October 31, 2009
Sitting in the ABC analyst's seat for Texas-Oklahoma State at 7 tonight will be Matt Millen. He'll work the game with Sean McDonough. Millen played on four Super Bowl winners as a linebacker with the Raiders, 49ers and Redskins before retiring after the 1991 season. He quickly became a top-notch NFL analyst for CBS and Fox before leaving the booth for the Detroit Lions front office in 2001. He had been considered Fox's heir apparent to John Madden. His tenure as president of the Lions was not quite as successful. In his eight full seasons on the job, the Lions were 31-97. He and the team finally parted company early last season.
Millen's lack of success in Detroit did not deter the networks from lining up at his door. NBC hired him to work in its NFL playoff and Super Bowl studio. In May, ESPN hired him to work ABC college football games and ESPN's NFL studio. When NFL Network gets back to broadcasting games during the second half of the season, Millen will be its analyst in the booth, replacing Cris Collinsworth.
Were you surprised the networks were practically tripping all over themselves trying to hire you after the Detroit experience?
"I don't think about things that way. I figured whatever happens, happens. I didn't anticipate anything."
What's the difference between college games and NFL games?
"The college game is its own little world. In college, coaches have to take what they have to make it work. I watch tapes of Top 15 programs and ask, 'Where are the players?' "
How does Colt McCoy stack up as an NFL prospect?
"I'm really anxious to watch him. He has all the intangibles. But he would have to answer questions like how the ball comes out of his hand, how he moves in the pocket, how he makes different throws. I'd say I'd need to watch three of his games to have a pretty good idea. Then there is the question of how he would fit into the offense of the NFL team you are running."
Your Lions took Texas wide receiver Roy Williams with the seventh pick of the 2004 NFL draft. There have been some questions about him since the Cowboys traded for him last season. How do you assess him?
"He is a talented guy, but you need a plan for him. You have to take what he does well and play to that. You can't get Roy Williams and just put him out there. He is a downfield guy with good hands. He is not a stop-and-go guy. He is not a double-move guy. If you ask him to do underneath stuff, he is coverable. When he comes out of cuts, defenders can recover quicker than he does. I'm a big Roy Williams fan, but like anybody else you have to ask of him what he is capable of doing."
Have the Cowboys not been using him correctly?
"I don't know. I haven't seen enough of their games. Jason Garrett is a smart guy. He'll figure it out."
Calling the Seahawks-Cowboys noon kickoff for Fox will be Dick Stockton and Charles Davis, who has served as the network's BCS savant.
Only 17 percent of the nation will be getting the lowprofile game, ending the Cowboys' five-game run of playing in front of No. 1 crews – NBC Sunday Night Football (Giants), ESPN Monday Night Football (Panthers), and three Fox A-team games (Broncos, Chiefs and Falcons).
The primo Fox noon game is Giants-Eagles, destined to be seen in 45 percent of the country. The game had been scheduled for the higher-profile 3:15 p.m. slot but was moved up to alleviate gridlock in Philadelphia and accommodate the city's fans interested in the Yankees-Phillies World Series prime-time game across the street.
That hardly bothered Fox, which shifted the Vikings-Packers game to 3:15 p.m., assuring the network a bountiful audience for Brett Favre's return to Lambeau Field.
Last week's Cowboys-Falcons game, by the way, was a large part of the reason Fox's doubleheader window was the highest-rated, most-watched NFL broadcast of the season (16.8 rating, 28.4 million viewers). There's a good chance Favre and Lambeau will set new highs.
The Fox and ESPN Sunday pregame studio show will be littered with Favre content. Fox deployed Terry Bradshaw for a taped pregame sit-down with Favre. Recall that Bradshaw has been critical of Favre's "I'm retired, I'm back" bit. Said Bradshaw during the opening-week pregame show: "I wish it would go away. ... I'll be glad when he's retired and moved on, because I'm really fed up with him."
FoxSports.com and NFL.com will have a "Favrecam" trained on the Vikings quarterback during pregame. Honest.
Fox Sports Southwest premieres a 30-minute Spotlight special on Stars-ex Brett Hull at 7 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. Wednesday. It comes five days before his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Nov. 9. ... Dale Hansen sits in for Craig Miller on The Ticket on Monday morning. The Hansen & Dunham show will mark Hansen's first appearance on the station since he left in a huff in April 2006 and soon surfaced at ESPN 103.3 FM. That relationship ended this summer. ... The Mavericks' opening night rating for Tuesday's stinker against Washington's Wizards was a 3.1 for Fox Sports Southwest. That's the best Mavericks number for the network since an April 2008 game against Seattle (3.5). ... NBA League Pass is being offered for free on digital cable, DirectTV and Dish Network through Tuesday. If you buy the entire season before then, it will cost $169.
Ratings for Yankees-Phillies are way up over last year's Rays-Phillies World Series. Just goes to show you that the Yankees have more more national appeal then the Rays. Duh. Also, the New York market is the biggest in the nation. Tampa-St. Petersburg, with Sarasota thrown in, is No. 13, about one-quarter the size of New York-northern New Jersey-southern Connecticut.
How far up are they through Game 2? Ratings are up 37 percent from last year (11.8 vs. 8.6) and Number of viewers is up 39 percent (19.2 million vs. 13.8 million).
Dallas-Fort Worth appears not to have even a slight case of baseball fever. It is the 53rd-rated market for the Yankees-Phillies just as it was No. 53 for the Rays-Phillies.
D-FW is averaging a 7.1 rating. The only major markets less interested are San Antonio (6.8), Houston (6.7) and Knoxville, Tenn. (6.5).