In the wacky-tobaccy world of football, where the Dolphins' Ricky Williams went up in smoke, Virginia Tech's Marcus Vick was suspended over possession charges and the Cowboys' Quincy Carter was so summarily dismissed for purportedly using the same substance that one Dallas wag wondered if there were an I in Q, it's only fitting that one of the first images the NFL chooses to display on national television this fall is ... Lenny Kravitz.

	Ten games you shouldn't miss ... Florida State at Miami: Sept. 6, ABC. Criminoles vs. Raisin' Canes. Buccaneers at Raiders: Sept. 26, ESPN. Gruden, T. Brown come home Cowboys at Redskins: Sept. 27, ABC. Parcells vs. Gibbs lives again. West Virginia at Connecticut: Oct. 13, ESPN. Could be for Big East title. Eagles at Browns: Oct. 24, Fox. Rats, Terrell Owens vs. Jeff Garcia. Ravens at Eagles: Oct. 31, CBS. Ray Lewis vs. T.O. the fleeing Raven. Ohio State at Michigan: Nov. 20, ABC. Always a doozy. Patriots at Chiefs: Nov. 22, ABC. AFC championship preview? Steelers at Bills: Jan. 2, CBS. Cowher-Donahoe Cage Match. Anything, anytime with USC: Two words: Matt Leinart. ... and 10 you should Miami of Ohio at Michigan: Sept. 4, ABC. No Roethlisberger, no way. Missouri at Troy State: Sept. 9, ESPN2. And I went to Missouri. Houston at Oklahoma: Sept. 11, TBS. Houston Texans, maybe; Coogs, no. Rice at Texas: Sept. 25, Fox Sports Net. Talk about tossing Rice. Ravens at Redskins: Oct. 10, ESPN. What's this, the Beltway Classic? Notre Dame at Navy: Oct. 16, CBS. Navy hasn't won since 1963. Broncos at Bengals: Oct. 25, ABC. Bungles on MNF, but not Steelers? Hawaii at Boise State: Oct. 29, ESPN2. Could play through Halloween. 49ers at Bears: Oct. 31, ESPN. QB classic: Tim Rattay vs. Rex Grossman. Notre Dame at Syracuse: Dec. 6, ABC. This determined '03 BCS? -- By Chuck Finder

Dude, isn't he the guitarist who helped to weed Williams out of the NFL?

Tune into ABC for a special Sept. 9 light-up night that kicks off a season we should call One Toke Over the Line, and maybe Kravitz will turn you on to that little ditty as a prelude to the Indianapolis-New England opener immediately thereafter.

OK, so Kravitz isn't the only performer in the joint that opening Thursday. It is indeed an eclectic mix of musicians rolled up into one weird evening: Mary J. Blige and Destiny's Child for the hip crowd, Toby Keith for the AFC and NFC South divisions, Elton John for anyone over 40, Jessica Simpson for anyone with male hormones. And traveling-companion Kravitz, just for Ricky.

Surely, NFL types must have considered the Doobie Brothers.

You have to admit, the public face of football has gone to pot (last one, I promise). It doesn't matter about Michele Tafoya on the ABC sideline, Sterling Sharpe in the Deion Sanders Endowed Mouth position on CBS, the Jim Nantz-for-Greg Gumbel trade on that same network, the potential "Monday Night Football"-to-ESPN trade or the possible re-emergence of NBC in broadcast-rights negotiations.

It doesn't matter who's broadcasting games or what channel. Americans will still tune into football -- sit down, network types -- because of the games themselves.

Oh, high-def television might win over a few more converts, but it's the game alone that maintains a religious pull on this country. Saturdays and Sundays are a sabbath to millions upon millions of true believers, even if far too many of them have a wager on the pagans they follow. Add up poker, baseball and the NHL, and it still isn't an average Nielsen rating the equivalent of the televangelism spread by Nantz on CBS, Joe Buck on Fox, Al Michaels and John Madden on ABC, the litany of folks on ESPN.

The network types just don't get it, though.

The geniuses who bring you the football broadcasts continue to tinker with the product, for your aural and visual pleasure.

Tafoya replaces Lisa Guerrero on ABC's "Monday Night Football" sidelines, meaning Reporting finally beat Rapturous Beauty, nothing against the lovely and talented Tafoya.

Now where the network could truly drop the ball is this switch under consideration to ESPN on Mondays. "MNF" remains a franchise show for ABC, its longest-running hit (the same as ESPN's "Sunday Night Football" is on cable). No other weekly sports broadcast gets ratings so high. The problem is, between a glut of football on TV and a megaglut of channels, the ratings for "MNF" go down, down, down. It isn't Dan Dierdorf, Dennis Miller, Dan Fouts or darling Lisa; it's the viewers.

To move "MNF" to the sister station, even if it means an economic windfall from advertisers and subscribers instead of a huge network loss, would even further defeat its over-the-air aura. It has been on ABC for a generation and a half, for viewers' lifetimes.

We eventually tired of "Gunsmoke" and "Happy Days" and even "Friends," but "MNF" doesn't require reruns. Football games are fresh, new, unfolding dramas, and 10-plus percent of American households ought to be enough to secure a network spot. And if ABC doesn't want to pay for it, NBC surely will. The peacock network is reportedly ready to take a run to get back a piece of the package it lost to CBS five years ago, and NBC Sports' Dick Ebersol bid on Mondays back then as a fallback.

Thus far, in early negotiations for the NFL TV rights that expire after the 2005 season, there has been talk of rights fees rising at most only $25 million per year (based on a $500 million price tag). To viewers, the most interesting discussions from the preliminary talks are threefold: the possibility of one network airing the entire Sunday afternoon slate, a market share of sorts by CBS and Fox; the potential possible return of late-season Thursday night games on cable; and maybe moving back Sunday afternoon kickoffs by an hour.

That would mean more time to tailgate.

And, in some cases, take a smoke.