About 18 million or so folks tuned in to NBC's Sunday Night Football Game last night, the Minnesota Vikings versus the Arizona Cardinals. That's a really good number, but it wasn't the boffo bonanza NBC had in mind when they used the NFL flex schedule option to choose Bret Favre over Tom Brady.

When I wrote about the flex schedule last week, a lot of reader comments said that NBC decision made perfect sense because the Vikings-Card game would be a bigger draw than the Patriots-Dolphins.

Well, guess what happened? The Favre game turned out to be a bust. The Cardinals, led by Kurt Warner, shredded the Vikings and won handily 30-17. It wasn't close and the ratings diminished from the second half on.

On Monday night, ESPN had one of the best NFL match ups of the season -- the undefeated New Orleans Saints versus perennial powerhouse New England Patriots. The game was, perhaps, a preview of the Super Bowl because it's entirely possible that the Saints and the Pats could make it through the playoffs to the ultimate game.

Well, without much more than the usual hype, ESPN's Monday Night Football got the huge audience this kind of contest warrants. It was the second most-watched cable program of all time. Yes, you read that correctly. The second most-watched cable program of all time. Over 20 million total viewers -- 21.4 million -- tuned in to watch the game... which turned out to be a bit of a dud. But that doesn't matter to ESPN because they scored big time.

FOX is hoping you like a little politics with your football coverage.

On Super Bowl Sunday (that's this Sunday), FOX News anchor Shep Smith will host a two hour political show on FOX from 10am to noon. The show will not only have news about the election (Super Tuesday is next week), but they'll also feature a story on what it takes to put the Super Bowl together and will include comments from the candidates and other politicians about the game and politics in general.

The move by the NFL to exclusively air this weekend's game between the New England Patriots and New York Giants on their own NFL network, which reaches only 40% of US households, was met with much criticism and frustration. With a win this weekend, the Patriots would become the first team to go undefeated in a 16-game season (the Dolphins did it in the 14-game '72 season).

Now it looks like pressure from Washington has changed their mind and suddenly the game is airing on NFL Network and both NBC and CBS. Of course, several local affiliates to the two teams had already negotiated exclusive rights to the game and sold ads at inflated rates, so they can't be too happy about having to share the game now with CBS and NBC.

I haven't Googled it, but I'm just going to assume that this is the first time a major TV network has opened a restaurant with a major sports franchise.

CBS and The New England Patriots (that's football for those readers who don't watch sports) have announced that they are joining together to open a new restaurant/bar called CBS Scene, and it will be one of the major attractions at the new Patriot Place entertainment and shopping complex in Foxboro, MA. The place will be 15,000 square feet and have tons of televisions, all showing CBS programming.

Once again, American Idol lived up to its reputation as a juggernaut -- or large, overpowering, destructive force -- by drawing more viewers during Wednesday's night telecast than all of the other major networks combined. According to recent Nielsen ratings, American Idol drew 36.9 million viewers total, leaving ABC, CBS, NBC and the CW Network all out in the cold.

So, what do you think it is?

Was it the debut episode of this season's American Idol? Was it the season opener of 24? Or maybe the half-season-ender of Lost a few months ago? The season opener of Grey's Anatomy?

Nope. The highest-rated TV show of the season so far was the third episode of Ghost Whisperer! OK, I'm kidding. The actual highest-rated show after the jump.

If you're from New England (or the past few years a football fan in general), you know that New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick isn't exactly a fashion plate. He always seems to wear the same thing, and looks kinda frumpy (no offense). But he really doesn't seem to mind it. He's not really the kind of guy who cares about looks.

That might change this Monday, October 30, on ESPN. That's when the cast of ABC's Ugly Betty will make an appearance on Monday Night Football and give Belichick a makeover. The people from the fictional Mode magazine on the show will do some Photoshop work on Belichick and turn him into Tom Brady.

I have no idea what this mean. Are they just going to take a picture of Belichick, click here and there and change him into Brady, or is it more involved than that, with Belichick and Brady actually involved? I guess we'll have to tune in to find out. The segment will air at 7pm.

That's what the court papers filed in Britain by Heather Mills say. Seems that Mills was upset that one of Rupert Murdoch's papers in Britain was going to say some nasty things about her, and she asked hubby Paul to back out of his Super Bowl halftime show appearance, which aired on FOX (also owned by Murdoch). When McCartney refused to back out of the show, that caused friction between the two (even though McCartney publicly denounced the article), leading to the divorce. Though there are more things in the divorce papers than that, as we've heard this week.

The most interesting part of the article isn't this story, but the fact that McCartney was paid $3.4 million for his halftime performance. How long did that performance last? I don't remember anything about it.

I've never been a big fan of Boston. I always thought it was the New York for woosies. I mean, take the New England Patriots -- they have a quarterback who not only looks like he could date a supermodel, but could also be a supermodel. But one thing about Boston -- they've got great hometown spirit and I love that. They are one of those cities (i.e. Detroit) that has a lot of pride. But maybe too much pride.