Pennington scrambles from field to Fox
Chad Pennington already has won a pair of NFL Comeback Player of the Year Awards, and he has not ruled out going for a third.
"I'm 50-50,'' he said, looking toward 2012. "Some days I wake up and I want to try to come back and some days I say it's probably not the right thing to do.
"But I've never been patient in my career. It's time to be patient."
In the meantime, he is kicking the tires on a new career, having joined Fox as an analyst for about half the weekends this season, alongside Sam Rosen. He debuts Sunday with the Carolina Panthers at the Arizona Cardinals.
It will be his first job as a professional game analyst -- or as just about anything other than a football player.
"I've never tried anything," he said. "I've always either played football and went to class or I've played football and raised a family. Never had any internships, second jobs, anything like that."
Pennington, a Jet from 2000-07 and runner-up for NFL MVP as a Dolphin in 2008, had hoped to play this season even after shoulder surgery last autumn. Then he tore his left ACL in a pickup basketball game in March during a visit to West Virginia.
"People say things happen for a reason,'' he said. "In this case, I don't believe that. I just think it was a dumb decision.''
So he scrapped 2011, figuring it would be unwise to come back after a fourth shoulder surgery playing on "an unstable foundation."
With three children ages 7 and under at home, there is plenty to keep him busy. But Fox's offer of a part-time gig was ideal for Pennington, 35, who earned a degree in broadcasting from Marshall.
"It's something I'd always kept in the back of my mind to look at when I was done playing," he said.
Still unresolved is when exactly that will be.
Tennis Channel off air
Television carriage disputes often are complicated and contentious, but Cablevision vs. Tennis Channel around this time in 2009 was more so of both than most.
The matter returned over the weekend when the channel removed itself from both Cablevision and Verizon FiOS at midnight Saturday, in the middle of the U.S. Open.
To make a long, complex story short, Tennis Channel's deal with the National Cable Television Cooperative -- which covered Cablevision and Verizon -- expired, and a new contract required the channel to be carried on widely available packages, not sports tiers that cost extra.
When Cablevision and Verizon declined to accept those terms, they lost access.
In a wide-ranging interview at Arthur Ashe Stadium last week, CEO Ken Solomon argued that the channel's content justifies broader distribution. (It currently is in about 30 million homes.)
"There's no better price-controlled, value-to-quality network on television -- none,'' he said. "If you were an honest programmer, you'd say of course in the Cablevision footprint, people would want Tennis Channel. The price range that we're talking about, it's cheap.''
Cablevision, which owns Newsday, said in a statement: "The Tennis Channel appears to have pulled its signal off dozens of cable systems across the country, including Cablevision, after demanding significantly higher fees.
"Fortunately, viewers can still see every important U.S. Open match on ESPN2, CBS, in 3D and through the comprehensive free online offerings of the USTA.''
