Stations adjust football gameplan

Have you ever sat down to watch a game on television only to turn on the TV to be disappointed that the local network affiliate is showing a different contest than promised?
Last Sunday, our local FOX station, WYFX 17/62, had the only 1 p.m. NFL game available to Mahoning County cable-TV subscribers. Advance listings said 17/62 would show the first-place battle between the New Orleans Saints (5-1) and San Francisco 49ers (4-1), whose owners live in Canfield.
Good choice, right?
So what did we get? The Chicago Bears (2-3) playing the Detroit Lions (1-4).
Duh!
Normally, it doesn't matter what FOX shows on Sunday afternoons because just about everyone in the Mahoning Valley is a Cleveland Browns or Pittsburgh Steelers fan, and one of those teams is usually being shown on CBS affiliate WKBN Channel 27.
Having a choice
But because the Steelers weren't playing until Monday and the Browns had a rare 4 p.m. start, what the local FOX channel showed actually mattered.
Which game would you show -- a potential preview of the NFC Championship game or a dud that had little interest outside of the Windy and Motor cities?
How bad was the telecast? The Bears-Lions game was so far down the FOX totem pole that the producers didn't even break in to have Howie, JB and Terry show highlights from other games. Heck, they hardly ran other scores on the screen.
Roland Adeszko, general manager for WYFX and WKBN Channel 27, said his station was responsible for the switch and agreed that announcing such moves in advance is a good idea.
Adeszko says his department heads reported no complaints for showing the Lions-Bears game.
That wasn't the case a week ago when Channel 27 chose not to pay extra to show the Ohio State-San Jose State game that was available from ESPN's extra slate of games. Instead, Channel 27 aired the Wisconsin-Indiana game from ESPN's Big Ten package.
"We couldn't come to terms," Adeszko said. WOIO Channel 19 in Cleveland and WTOV Channel 9 in Steubenville did ante up for the unbeaten Buckeyes, spurring the complaints.
"I don't know how much those guys paid for it," Adeszko said. "But [the distributor] wanted more than what some of the NFL [exhibition] telecasts cost."
Buckeye fans, who are starving for a national championship, can't get enough of Jim Tressel's team. Appeasing them might have been worth the extra cost.
NFL
Seven weeks into the NFL season, the Steelers (3-3) have rebounded from a 1-3 start to tie the Baltimore Ravens for first place in the AFC North Division. Just one-half game back are the Browns (3-4).
Of course, congratulating someone for being in the first-place chase in the AFC North is like telling a Pittsburgh vocalist that he's won the Myron Cope sound-alike award or a Cleveland actor that he's been named Drew Carey's double.
Then again, it's better than being in last place, which would mean tying the Cincinnati Bengals for grand incompetence. (Hello, Arthur "Big Guy" Carlson of WKRP.)
Sunday, the Steelers travel to Baltimore to play the Ravens for first place. The winner will remain unbeaten in the division, a key tiebreaker when playoff time rolls around.
Evaluation
As the halfway point of the season arrives, the AFC West and the surprising NFC South are the league's toughest divisions, while the AFC North is the weakest (once again, thank you Bengals).
Show of hands -- how many NFL followers predicted that the Saints, San Diego Chargers and Green Bay Packers would be leading the league with 6-1 records, while the St. Louis Rams would begin 0-5? Neither did we.
XTom Williams is a sportswriter for The Vindicator. Write him at williams@vindy.com.