Moose, Goose and Your Week 4 Blackout-a-thon

When we didn't actually have maps last week, but rather links to maps, we thought it best to stop calling this feature a map-a-thon. But that doesn't mean there still won't be some blackouts. Well, one blackout, as the AP reports that Jacksonville will have the only home stadium not sold out this week. There was some concern about Kansas City filling the stadium in their tilt against the Giants, but per the Red Zone blog for the Kansas City Star, there will be no blackout, even though tickets are still available through Ticketmaster as of this morning.

FOX
While the Chiefs are hardly playing to the level that would warrant a full stadium, that hasn't dissuaded FOX from making the Giants at Chiefs one of the network's marquee early games. FOX is sending the crew of Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston and Tony Siragusa to Kansas City, while sending Dick Stockton and Charles Davis to cover Seattle at Indy. Maybe someone at FOX got confused and sent their second crew to cover the wrong Manning. After all, as we saw yesterday, they have been rather confused about who is covering what game this weekend.

What's interesting is the fact that the crew of Moose and Goose (and Kenny) keep getting the same few teams. Dallas at Tampa, Tampa at Buffalo, New York Giants at Tampa -- that's way too much Tampa in three weeks. This week, they get Giants at KC? When can this crew catch a decent game?

The other early FOX games this week are Tampa Bay at Washington with Sam Rosen and Tim Ryan and Detroit at Chicago with Thom Brennaman and Brian Billick.

The late slot for FOX is dominated by Dallas at Denver, with nearly the entire country – everyone outside the greater St. Louis area, northern California and parts of Nevada – getting the Cowboys visit to first-place Denver, called by Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. Those in and around St. Louis and San Francisco will get the Rams visit to the 49ers, called by Ron Pitts and John Lynch. Honestly, with only two markets getting that game and the Rams being one of the teams involved, Pitts and Lynch could not even show up, and most people – maybe even those at FOX – would never even notice.

CBS
While everyone is taking about the the Monday Night Football game you may have Favred heard about this week, CBS has some great games in both the early and late time slots. The early game of the day is Baltimore at New England, brought to us by Jim Nantz and Phil Simms. But with CBS only broadcasting one game in each market, some major markets won't get that game. Much of the country will get NY Jets at New Orleans in the late game, called by Greg Gumbell and Dan Dierdorf. It's really a toss up for CBS game of the week, but on paper, the network made the right call for the top crew.

The rest of the CBS pairings are led by a somewhat curious decision. Dick Enberg and Dan Fouts, thought of as the CBS third crew, are slated to call Tennessee at Jacksonville, which – as we stated earlier – is blacked out in one of those two markets. Gus Johnson and Steve Tasker get Oakland at Houston while Ian Eagle and Rich Gannon get the battle of Ohio. In the only other late game, Kevin Harlan and Solomon Wilcots get Buffalo at Miami. It will be interesting to see if, with the blackout, CBS switches up the announce crews.

Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth get the Chargers at Steelers and Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Jon Gruden will cover Farvapalooza. If Gruden said last week that, "Jake Delhomme leads the league in grit," what will he think of for Favre?

Map links and announce crew pairings courtesy of The 506.

And, since Littmann is gone for the week, this video is in his honor – your obligatory Blackout video of the week. Worst. Video. Ever.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.