Former Raiders QB Rich Gannon won't be away from football for long. He'll call games for CBS this season. David Paul Morris/Getty Images
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During a week when his competitors offered breathless press releases, dueling conference calls and splashy signings, CBS Sports president Sean McManus got the last word, albeit a quiet one. Thursday, his network announced that former quarterback Rich Gannon had been hired as an NFL game analyst. When compared to the cacophony surrounding ESPN procuring Al Michaels to call Monday Night Football when the package switches to cable in 2006, NBC's announcement that Bob Costas had signed a new six-year deal and will host its Sunday Night Football studio show or even FOX locking up top analyst Troy Aikman though 2011, Gannon teaming with Craig Bolerjack on one of the network's secondary teams isn't going to stop the presses at Broadcasting & Cable. But, having locked up most of CBS' NFL talent months ago, McManus could take in the week's circus atmosphere with an air of bemusement. "I always enjoy watching the machinations of the television sports industry," said McManus. "But I do it with a feeling of relaxation because we have gotten our guys lined up for the next six years. We went through the same process NBC and FOX are still going through, only we did it six months to a year ago."

McManus earlier in the year signed Phil Simms, Jim Nantz and Boomer Esiason to multi-year deals and is in the process of locking up Dan Marino. As for the 39-year-old Gannon, McManus said he was optimistic about the former QB, who retired in 2004 after 18 NFL seasons. One Bay Area football writer who covered Gannon told me that although the former Raider could be prickly, Gannon was honest and not particularly paranoid. That bodes well for television, a business as paranoid as a Panamanian strongman. "You never know how good someone is going to be until the end of the first season," McManus said. "He has to get six or seven games under his belt before you really have a good feeling as to whether he'll be a top-echelon guy. I'm optimistic that [Gannon] can be, but I'll know a lot more in November. But if I didn't think he had the potential, I would not have hired him. Of all the guys we have seen in the past couple of years in auditions, I think he has a much potential as anybody to reach a high echelon among the analysts."

One who has already scaled the highest peaks of sports broadcasting is Michaels, who opted to stay within the Disney family rather than join his current partner Madden at NBC. "I feel like I'm a creature of Monday night," Michaels said on a conference call Tuesday. "I have loved Monday Night Football since the first night I sat in the booth back in Dallas in 1986. For me it's a case of I'm home and I'm staying home. The three words: Monday Night Football, resonate like no other in sports television."

Here's another word that resonates like no other in sports television: cash. "I can't speak for him [Michaels] but I'd say the only issue was money," said NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol on a conference call Tuesday to announce Costas' contract extension. "[Michaels] clearly understood that with flexible scheduling, the postseason and two Super Bowls, [NBC's deal] was qualitatively the best package. But we have certain numbers that we won't go beyond for certain roles. We reluctantly said goodbye last night." Michaels responded about an hour later on his conference call. "At this point in my life, the issue was not money," he said. "The ESPN deal was a better deal and it should have been because I've been there for 29 years at the same company. But if I had to make a choice based on [money] at this point in my life, I have been pretty terrible investor. I have not been. This was a case of the deals were very interesting on both sides."

Very interesting, indeed. Ebersol said his talks with Michaels ended last Monday night. ESPN officials said the deal was made the previous week. "I think ESPN does more fantasy league work than we do because I spoke to Al's agent and closed our negotiations last night at 10 o'clock," Ken Schanzer, president of NBC's sports division, told the New York Times on Tuesday.