Jim Nantz Fails To Deliver Another Moment Of "One More Cow" Brilliance

It was difficult to tell who was more disappointed this morning, Imus or Jim Nantz.

Last time Nantz appeared on this show, just before the AFC Championship game, he had promised the I-Man he'd incorporate the words "Imus" and "Fox" into his broadcast on CBS. A man of his word, Nantz came through, weaving, "I must say, coming up on Fox..." into his play-by-play of the game.

But it wasn't enough.

"This was not 'one more cow,'" Imus said, referring to the phrase he had previously challenged Nantz with, back in 2008. "One more cow was brilliant."

Nantz saw things differently. "I kept waiting for the gift basket at the door," he said, surprised at Imus's lack of gratitude. "I told the guy who looks after my house, 'There's going to be something coming from the I-Man. Go ahead and sign for it.'"

Agreeing, for now, to disagree, Imus moved on this Sunday's Superbowl game between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints, which Nantz will call on CBS alongside his partner Phil Simms. Which was, for some reason, also not enough for Imus.

"You'd think maybe you'd augment it with somebody else," he said. When Nantz joked that they wouldn't suddenly bring in someone like Katie Couric just because of the Superbowl's magnitude, Imus exclaimed, "That's a great idea!"

Caught up in the excitement, Nantz boasted that, in fact, he and Simms would appear with Couric on tonight's edition of The CBS Evening News.

"Well nobody's going to see that," Imus observed.

But if this past NFL season is any indicator, plenty of people will be see the Superbowl on Sunday. Television ratings for the NFL were up a minimum of ten percent across the board this year, Nantz said, and if that trend continues on Sunday CBS will garner the biggest audience to watch a television event in the history of the country.

Most of that audience, Nantz believes, will be pulling for the Saints, whose city is still coming back from the havoc Hurricane Katrina wreaked in 2005. "Indianapolis might feel like they're playing an away game," he observed.

2010 is shaping up to be a big year for our guy Nantz; in addition to the Superbowl, he'll also do the Final Four and the Masters. "And the Imus show," he chimed in. "That's the big four, for me."

Nantz apologized again for not adequately inserting "Imus" and "Fox" into his broadcast two weeks ago (you know, the one that more than 70 million people were watching).

To which Imus bitterly replied, "You screwed me. Big time."

-Julie Kanfer