NFL Week 12: Cincinnati at Pittsburgh

I'm not crazy about these Thursday night games for several reasons. First, I don't have the NFL Network, the games are usually lousy matchups and then I have to put up a single game without having taken much times to go over all the games. And tonight is a dud with the lowly Bengals at the Steelers.

We were 8-8 in Week 11 and stand at 77-80-3 for the season. We'll have the rest of Week 12 later in the week.

STEELERS -10.5 Bengals: Pittsburgh has had a brutal stretch of home games the past month, but get a reprieve with the visiting Bengals, now at 1-8-1 and with no Ocho Stinko. It'll be 30 degrees and snowing and the last place Cincinnati wants to is in Pittsburgh. Steelers defense shuts down this low rent outfit easy. Steelers 31-3.

Blockbuster Ratings for Giants-Patriots

As expected, Saturday night's Patriots-Giants game racked up huge ratings, with the game coming in as the most watched regular season NFL game since 1995.

The historic New England Patriots-New York Giants game pushed past this year's Patriots-Indianapolis Colts thriller to become the most-watched regular-season NFL telecast since 1995.

At least 34.5 million people tuned in to various outlets, including both CBS and NBC, to watch the Pats earn a place in NFL history Saturday by completing a perfect 16-0 regular season with a 38-35 victory over the Giants, according to preliminary estimates released Sunday by Nielsen Media Research.

That tops everything since the Thanksgiving 1995 Kansas City Chiefs-Dallas Cowboys game that averaged 35.7 million viewers. It also was ahead of CBS' 33.8 million viewers for the November 4 Patriots-Colts game.

Saturday's game was the first time since Super Bowl I in the mid-1960s that an NFL game was simulcast on more than one network. It also was available on three channels in New York (the local CBS and NBC outlets as well as Fox-owned indie WWOR) and all three of the Big Three in Boston (CBS, NBC and ABC).

CBS averaged 15.7 million viewers, which was the largest share of any of the networks simulcasting the game. NBC averaged about 13.1 million viewers, with 4.5 million viewers for the NFL Network nationwide and the rest spread across the three over-the-air channels in the New York and Boston markets (WWOR, Boston's WCVB and New Hampshire's WMUR).

NBC, CBS to Simulcast Patriots-Giants

In an unprecedented move, the NFL Network will now allow both CBS and NBC to simulcast the much anticipated New England Patriots at New York Giants game Saturday night, as the Patriots look to go to 16-0 for the season.

The Patriots-Giants game, which was to be broadcast Saturday night to less than half the country by the NFL Network, will be available to the entire nation under an agreement reached Wednesday by NBC and CBS to simulcast it.

The 15-0 Patriots are attempting to become the first National Football League team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to go undefeated throughout the entire regular season. Miami went on to win the Super Bowl and finish 17-0 that season.

NBC and CBS will show the NFL Network’s production of the game, with the announcers Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth, and will not pay an extra rights fee. They will each get to sell 18 30-second commercial units.

Dick Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Universal Sports, said yesterday by telephone that in a conversation in October with Steve Bornstein, the chief executive of the NFL Network, that he would be amenable to a simulcast, and would share it with another broadcast network, if the Patriots’ momentum toward an undefeated season continued. Then, on Monday morning, Bornstein called to ask him if his idea was still viable for NBC.

“As early as last week, I didn’t think it would happen, but then Steve called and I ran it past Jeff, and he said, ‘yes,’ ” said Ebersol, referring to Jeff Zucker, the president of NBC Universal. He added, “I’m intrigued by the historic nature of two over-the-air networks carrying the game. It’ll be fun and will give the NFL Network a chance to exhibit their wares.”

Joe Browne, a spokesman for the league, said: “The two networks independently expressed an interest in carrying the game. They saw the problems we were having with a few of the big cable companies, and so we went back to them earlier this week, and said, ‘What if you both simulcast the NFL Network?’”

What a shame the Giants will have to ruin the party for everyone.

Wait, did I just say that?

Just kidding. They have nothing to play for after locking up the NFC's No. 5 seed and a date with Tampa Bay next week.