Kick back with Friday Night Lights, starting Jan. 16 at 9 p.m. Photo courtesy of NBC.

Last week was a major sweep for football: 26.8 million viewers tuned in for the BCS National Championship game between Florida and Oklahoma.  And the Fiesta Bowl (Texas vs. Ohio State) and the NFL playoff game between the Cardinals and the Panthers rounded out a bigtime ratings rally.  Super Bowl buzz is already underway -- in spite of sluggish predictions, NBC has sold more than 90 percent of the 67 ad spots and expects to break FOX's $186.3 million ad haul from last year.

So in theory, timing couldn't be better for football-centric, Emmy-winning drama "Friday Night Lights" to tackle the airwaves with its third season, debuting tomorrow at 9 p.m.  Mega-fan Bill Simmons continues to beat the drum via podcast over at ESPN.com, basically begging people to watch "the best sports TV show since 'White Shadow.'"  But "Lights" is about so much more than the gridiron. Showrunner Jason Katims tell us what to expect from Season 3 -- and why we should tune in now -- on the heels of the show's third straight Best Dramatic Series nomination from the Writers' Guild Assocation:

You've just wrapped Season 3 on DirecTV, and are re-showing the whole thing on NBC -- can we expect differences or added content?

I think that the versions on air between DirecTV and NBC are going to be very, very similar -- there are a few slight changes.  There is going to be a lot of extra content on NBC.com that we have -- specifically, deleted scenes for most of the episodes, never before available, which is something we've done before in the previous seasons and people really respond to them.  It tends to be on the show that we have a lot of really good scenes that unfortunately get cut because of time.  So we're able to sort of supply that to our fans -- who tend to be the kind of fans would seek out that kind of content.

How do you benefit from this kind of dual roll-out model?

Having it on DirecTV first... has kept it in the air – even if you haven't seen it, it's been on people's minds to some degree.  So fans are eager and anticipating Friday’s premiere because of that buzz factor.  They show hasn't been seen on NBC for over a year, or about a year, so we're hoping our fans have stayed reminded of the show -- and that new viewers are anticipating it, as well.  

[CLICK 'MORE' FOR FULL INTERVIEW]

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