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Baltimore's Nelly's Echo made his second - and unfortunately last - appearance on NBC's “The Voice” Monday night, as contestants entered into the battle rounds and some, sadly, went home. TEAM CHRISTINA   Nelly's Echo - Nelson Emokpae, for us local fans - was pitted against Chicago's De'Borah, and NBC has garnered my wrath for unfairly pairing MY TWO FAVORITES AND FORCING ONE OF THEM TO LEAVE. Coach Christina Aguilera had the two taking on The Police's “Message in a Bottle,” and frankly, during rehearsals, De'Borah was a mess, while Nelson seemingly had the win already in hand.

Former Pittsburgh Steelers receiver and longtime Ravens nemesis Hines Ward has a new job as analyst for NBC's "Football Night in America. " But he's still feeling the old "hate" when he comes to Baltimore. Ward, who will be working in Baltimore tonight during the prime-time matchup between the Ravens and New England Patriots, posted this little chronicle on the "hate" he received on his journey to Baltimore for the game. Judging for all the parenthetical "haha's," I'm guessing there's some tongue in cheek from Ward here, but he was a much better receiver than he is a writer, so I am not so sure.

If there is one television sportscaster to whom the adjective “legendary” can honestly be applied, it is Al Michaels, play-by-play announcer of NBC's “Sunday Night Football.” From almost two decades in the booth at ABC's “Monday night Football,” to his “Do you believe in miracles?” call of the U.S. victory over the Russian hockey team at 1980 Olympics, Michaels' resume and the history of the biggest moments of TV sports are practically one and the same. Michaels and his colleagues on NBC Sunday Night Football will be in Baltimore when the Ravens meet the New England Patriots.

NBC Sports wasted no time re-establishing "Sunday Night Football" as the top-rated show in prime time with a season opener that set a viewing record. Sunday's game between the Denver Broncos and Pittsburgh Steelers, which saw the return of Peyton Manning after neck surgery, was the highest rated Sunday game ever on the most-watched football show in the nation. An audience of 27.57 million watched Sunday as Manning's Broncos beat the Steelers. Baltimore was the 10th highest-rated city for the game, and every one of the viewers enjoyed every second of seeing the Steelers lose (OK, I made up the last part of that sentence following the comma.

Bob Costas, one of the sports world's most eloquent voices, used one of pop culture's biggest stages to argue for Art Modell's place in pro football's Hall of Fame Sunday. Here's what Costas said during halftime of NBC's Sunday Night opener between the Denver Broncos and Pittsburgh Steelers. NBC's Sunday night games are the highest rated series on American prime-time television with as many as 20 million viewers a week. As you've heard, Art Modell, the longtime owner of the Cleveland Browns, and then the Baltimore Ravens, died Thursday at the age of 87. Modell's rich and impactful life began in Brooklyn, where he grew up. With that background, he no doubt understood the lasting enmity toward Walter O'Malley, the owner who moved Brooklyn's beloved Dodgers to Los Angeles.

The Baltimore Ravens will probably never be "America's Team," as the Dallas Cowboys came to be known in the 1970s, thanks to their frequent appearances in nationally televised games. But with the Ravens appearing in prime-time matchups three of the first four weeks of the NFL season - starting with tonight's season opener of ESPN's "Monday Night Football" - no team will have a higher national profile during the first month of NFL play. What makes that all the more remarkable is that the defending AFC North champs are a small-market franchise in a world where media market size largely determines which teams are featured in night-time, national TV games.

UPDATES WITH REPLAY DATES -- Talk about a TV series being on the news, Thursday's night's edition of "Caught Looking" takes viewers inside last weekend's series between the Baltimore Orioles and the New York Yankees just as the two teams reconvene for an epic showdown in Baltimore. This week's installment will premiere at 9 p.m. Thursday with replays throughout the week. The 10-minute clip I saw made me want more, more, more. Here's the release form the NBC Sports Network cable channel: With the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees currently tied for first place in the American League East, this week's Caught Looking (Thursday night at 9 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network)

Every two years, the Olympics roll around and amazing specimens of humanity like Michael Phelps make the rest of us feel like tree sloths. The Winter Olympics are bad enough -- downhill racers streaking like rockets, snowboarders and ski jumpers defying gravity, skaters making ice look like a dance floor instead of something hard, cold and dangerously slick -- but the Summer Games have the added element of athletes competing with their bodies on...

Most of the time, I don't see a lot of commercials -- usually I'm watching after the fact on my DVR and skipping over them or watching instant streaming. But since I've been a little bit obsessed with the Olympics, I've seen far more ads than usual. And one of them is making me a little crazy. The ad for "Stars Earn Stripes" claims that celebrities will face "the same challenges as our Armed Forces. " Oh, really? Insurgents going to be shooting or lobbing bombs at them? Improvised explosive devices possibly planted around every corner?

Pew reports that "large majorities of Americans" are following the Olympics on TV, online and on social networks in a new survey released today. Among the most compelling findings is that 76 percent of those surveyed believe NBC is doing an "excellent" or "good" job in coverage. That is certainly at odds with perception of widespread criticism in social media, with some analysts saying there are "millions" of disgruntled audience members. Also of note, the finding that 68 percent "say they are watching events in the evening after they have occurred.