There’s only one player in the NFL who matters right now.

CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, NFL Network are all giving thanks for Archie Manning’s second son. Especially CBS.

Peyton delivered again Sunday for CBS with the highest ratings since the Oscars (details below). If the network could figure out a way, it would air Sunday’s Denver-Jacksonville game in primetime. “Manning completes a touchdown pass to himself…”

With Fox having the doubleheader window this week, Sunday’s mismatch will mark the first Broncos game that won’t be going national this year. However, it is merely a one-game blip.

Look at the Peyton feast that lies ahead for the networks:

Oct. 20: Manning’s return to Indy on Sunday night. NBC already doing cartwheels.

Oct. 27: Washington at Denver. Doubleheader game on Fox.

Nov. 3: Bye. Will networks run compilation of Manning’s touchdowns instead of games?

Nov. 10: Denver at San Diego. CBS on doubleheader coverage.

Nov. 17: Kansas City at Denver. Fox has doubleheader window that week with San Francisco-New Orleans likely pick. This game, though, will get plenty of attention on CBS.

Nov. 24: Denver at New England on Sunday night. More cartwheels for NBC.

Dec. 12: San Diego at Denver on Thursday night. NFL Network gets to show Manning throwing his 100th touchdown pass of the season.

Ah yes, it should be a good year for the networks, thanks to Manning.

From CBS off of yesterday’s game:

*******

CBS Sports’ Week 5 coverage of THE NFL ON CBS on Sunday, Oct. 6, highlighted by the Denver Broncos’ wild, 51-48, win over the Dallas Cowboys earned the highest rating of the NFL season-to-date on any network with an average overnight household rating/share of 18.6/34 in the metered markets.

Yesterday’s game rating/share peaked at 24.4/41 from 7:30-7:45 PM, ET.  The 18.6/34 also was an 18% increase from last year (15.7/29; highlighted by Denver-New England; Buffalo-San Francisco; Tennessee-Minnesota).

In addition, the game’s rating/share is the highest-rated program on television in the metered markets since the 2013 Academy Awards (26.1/41; 2/24/13).

If you are PBS and Crown Publishing, you have to love that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell sent out a letter to an estimated 10 million NFL fans yesterday, addressing the concussion issue.

The letter came a day after excerpts from the new book, League of Denial, ran in Sports Illustrated and ESPN.com. The book, written by Mark and Steve Fainaru, forms the basis for the upcoming documentary which has the same title Tuesday night on PBS.

From PBS.org:

A league spokesman told FRONTLINE that the email was the commissioner’s 11th such message to fans since 2011, and is part of an effort “to inform fans on progress we have made on the safety front in youth football.”

Yeah sure. The timing and content of the letter seems to be a direct effort to refute the notion that the league looked the other way for way too long when it came to concussions, as charged in the film and book.

Either way, I’m betting most of the recipients of the Goodell’s letter weren’t aware of upcoming documentary or the book. Now he focused more attention on both of them.

Goodell obviously had to issue some sort of response. However, it likely will produce higher ratings for the documentary and more sales for the book.

For the latest in sports media, follow me at Sherman_Report.

Last night, while driving home from downtown Chicago, I spent a good 45 minutes listening to Ian Eagle and Boomer Esiason call the Chiefs-Eagles game on the radio.

My awareness level was elevated because earlier in the day I had read Richard Deitsch’s piece on the NFL and radio at MMQB.

Deitsch wrote that despite all the new advances in technology, there’s still something to be said for being able to hear a football game on radio, just as we did in the 1970s.

Deitsch’s story includes this passage:

Howard Deneroff, the longtime executive producer for Westwood One Sports, is also bullish on the future of NFL radio given how society has become mobile with its sports consumption. Deneroff said more than 23 million listeners tuned into a portion of last year’s Super Bowl broadcast on Westwood One Sports. (That number does not include satellite radio, online, or mobile, which all carried the Westwood One broadcast.)

“Radio, or audio more appropriately nowadays, is accessible everywhere—via radio, cars, online, and mobile devices,” says Deneroff. “We have immediacy, mobility and other intangibles that TV doesn’t have, especially in unusual times. I will point out that at last year’s Super Bowl, we were the first media entity back on the air reporting the power outage, the first to report it was isolated to the Superdome and not affecting other parts of New Orleans, and the first to report what caused it. All were important because unfortunately the word terrorism was an immediate thought that entered everybody’s mind. Radio is still an important means of communication, even though ways of consuming it have changed.”

Listening to last night’s game reminded me that football still sounds pretty good on the radio. Of course, it helps if you have a pro’s pro like Eagle on the call.

Here’s Eagle in Deitsch’s piece.

What makes a successful radio broadcast for football? “It’s all about your ability to relay the action in a timely and descriptive manner while also conveying the emotion of the game,” says Ian Eagle, who calls Thursday night football for Westwood One Radio, as well as wild-card and divisional playoff games. (Kevin Harlan is the radio voice of Monday night football and the Super Bowl.) “There is a certain ebb and flow to a radio broadcast,” Eagle adds. “But most importantly you have to ask yourself the question, ‘Are the listeners getting the information they need to follow along?’ ”

Eagle says the score, time remaining, down and distance, which team has the ball and which direction its driving is the basic framework of an NFL radio broadcast.

“Then you get into the particulars—who has the ball, who made the tackle, did the ball carrier run left or right, where are the receivers lined up pre-snap, was the play inside or outside,” says Eagle. “The next step is being more specific with your calls: Did the runner slash or stutter step? Did the pass hit the receiver in the numbers or did he catch it with his hands? What color are the uniforms? What are the weather conditions? This is often where football play-by-play announcers can separate themselves from others. In addition, you should be ready to ‘tag’ what your analyst is saying if there is something that you can add to enhance his point. But it can’t get in the way of describing the next play.”

 

Nothing makes Twitter explode more than the signal going out during an NFL game. I contacted the Fox folks for the Chicago Tribune report.

Bottom line: Nothing is perfect. At least the right team won. Sorry, Minnesota readers.

Fox’s broadcast of Sunday’s Bears-Vikings game has been marred by technical difficulties, including several blacked-out minutes at the end of the first half.

The network missed the Vikings’ third touchdown and went to its halftime show with at more than a minute remaining in the half.

“We started to experience issues with the signal to the transmission lines into the truck and when we lost the signal, immediately tried to reboot the entire process to get the signal back as soon as we possibly could,” Fox spokesman Dan Bell told the Tribune. “We understand that it is unacceptable and we apologize everyone who was watching this game, especially those viewers in the Chicago and Minneapolis markets.

Christine Brennan is the latest high-profile writer to say she won’t be using the nickname for the Washington team. However, the USA Today columnist likely will catch a little more flak than the others. She lives in the DC area and used to cover Washington for the Washington Post.

Brennan writes:

I live in Washington, and for three years, from 1985-87, I was the Redskins beat writer for The Washington Post. Then, and even now, saying “Redskins” has always come naturally to me. That word has been a significant part of my life – my professional life anyway – and a very happy, proud, fulfilling part of it. In talking about the team, or my career, I’ve used the name so often that I’ve never given it a second thought.

But when I said the nickname this summer during a panel discussion, I stopped myself. For the first time, it didn’t seem right to say it.

Why then? Why not last year? Or five years ago? Or when I covered the team? I think it was the cumulative effect of all the reporting on the issue in the past year or so, solid journalism that continually brings to the surface just how racist the term is to many in the Native American community. And even if only some Native Americans think it’s racist, here’s news for the rest of us, whether we want to hear it and deal with it or not: it’s racist.

Brennan concludes:

So, if Goodell is true to his word, and I think he will be, he is going to start “doing the right things to address” the issue.

Someday, hopefully very soon, the team will get a new nickname. Things are changing. How do I know? Here I am writing this column.

Meanwhile, Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News asks if media people should be taking stands here. He writes it falls under the category of media making news, a no-no in our business.

Hoffarth writes:

The media will call out current team owner Daniel Snyder to change his franchise’s name. It’s ultimately his decision, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell meekly says. Yet Snyder recently told USA Today: “We’ll never change the name. It’s that simple. Never — you can use caps.”

Thwarted with that tactic, the media also has the ability to take it upon itself and change its own editorial policy, subtle or not.

Have an epiphany and take a number. The line’s getting longer by the day.