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Forget Dr. Laura, bad plastic surgery or anything with Wes Craven above the marquee. Here's something that will really scare you:

Nov. 15: Philadelphia Eagles (7-1) vs. Dallas Cowboys (3-5)

Nov.  22: New England Patriots (7-1) vs. Kansas City Chiefs (3-5)

Nov.  29: St. Louis Rams (4-4) vs. Green Bay Packers (4-4)

Dec. 6: Dallas Cowboys (3-5) vs. Seattle Seahawks (5-3)

Dec. 13: Kansas City Chiefs (3-5) vs. Tennessee Titans (3-5)

Dec. 20: New England Patriots (7-1) vs. Miami Dolphins (1-8)

Dec. 27: Philadelphia Eagles (7-1) vs. St. Louis Rams (4-4)

That's the remaining Monday Night Football schedule. Not exactly Salma Hayek, is it? At the moment, there's not a single game featuring two teams with winning records. And if the Chiefs and Rams go further south -- those teams appear in four of the remaining seven games -- the sound you just heard are viewers clicking to The Swan 2 on Fox.

Such doom and gloom contrasts with the week that was for the NFL: Both Fox and CBS extended its NFL deals through 2011, increasing the league's coffers by a combined $8 billion in rights fees. Add to that a five-year deal (for $3.5 billion) to extend and expand DirecTV's exclusive rights to carry NFL Sunday Ticket through the 2010 season and it's clear that the King of All Media isn't Howard Stern. It's Paul Tagliabue. The NFL ranked fifth (Fox) and seventh (CBS) among the most watched regularly scheduled shows or series through Nov. 4, according to Nielsen. That's an average of 19.5 million viewers for Fox and 19 million for CBS. Want some perspective? The NFL sits just behind CSI: Miami (20 million) and ahead of ABC's Lost (17.5 million). That's what you call destination television.

Which leads us back to Monday Night Football, which looks anything but destination television during the final seven weeks of the season. And you can't blame the schedule-makers. The Chiefs were a fashionable preseason pick to contend for the AFC title and if you would have predicted last July that Miami would lose eight of its first nine games and Ricky Williams would be hanging out in youth hostels across the globe, I would have asked you what you were smoking.

The NFL, the ultimate television sport, won't sit by idly as its primetime showcase is weighed down by seemingly uninteresting matchups. Not when the possibility exists for something better. A flexible schedule is coming. Count on it as soon as the final weeks of the 2006 season. Fox Sports executives said as much this week on a conference call to announce the new deal.

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What will likely happen is the Monday night network would get the option of taking a Sunday afternoon game from either Fox or CBS. The networks would learn two or three weeks ahead of time when a game would be pulled and there will no doubt be some provision for Fox and CBS to protect a marquee or marquee games. (Not sure there's a provision for fans who bought a Sunday afternoon game only to learn it's being moved to a Monday).

"They're still forming a form of a flexible schedule," said Fox Sports president Ed Goren. "But we really do believe that it will not be damaging. It will be positive for all parties."

CBS Sports president Sean McManus said there was a provision in the CBS deal to discuss flexible scheduling depending on what happens in future negotiations with the primetime carrier "but nothing specific in the contract except we've agreed to talk about it and have a good faith discussion on it."

Say amen, CBS, because those "good faith" discussions are going to be good for the NFL. The league simply can't afford for its primetime showcase to have bad games late in the season, whether that package is on ABC, ESPN or USA (the Sunday and Monday night packages, and a new late-season primetime Thursday/Saturday night package are the next deals to be negotiated).

MNF is currently averaging an 11.1 national rating. Last year it drew a 11.5 rating for the season. That's down from a 12.7 rating in 2000, even though it remains a steady performer among all shows and delivers key demographics (MNF has earned a season-to-date 9.5 national rating among men 18 to 49, up from last year's 9.4 rating and ahead of a top performer such as CSI (9.0).

Ultimately, a competitive Monday night game helps the product as a whole, and thus adds value to all the networks. But it will be interesting to see just how "positive" Fox and CBS will be feeling the first time they lose a game.

ONE LAST THING BECAUSE IT'S MY NAME AND HEADSHOT ABOVE

Rare is the movie that offers a realistic relationship between adult males (And, no, Old School doesn't count) but Alexander Payne's brilliant new film, Sideways, is such a gem. The dialogue between co-stars Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church is extraordinary and the performances by Sandra Oh and Virginia Madsen are as spicy as jalapeno soup. It's the best picture I've seen this year, and, for my money, the one to beat come Oscar time.