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Oh, how the television season can humble even the most highly polished of the network golden boys! At last year's upfronts, NBC's Jeff Zucker practically tore open his shirt to shave a dollar sign in his chest hair to reveal a tattoo of Matt LeBlanc's face:

During his sales pitch at Radio City Music Hall last spring, NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker told advertisers they could bank on this: His network would dominate Thursday night for the 21st consecutive year. "I'm so confident," he said, "that I'm willing to predict that our ratings next year on Thursday will be even higher."

This year's Zucker, beaten down by an embarrassing fourth place finish, is a little humbler:

"Do I wish we had repopulated the schedule with more, newer hits? Sure," Mr. Zucker said on Thursday, reclining briefly in a suede easy chair in his office, 25 floors above Rockefeller Plaza. "It was a difficult year, and it didn't happen..."

Give the same set of ratings lemons, CBS's Les Moonves would've spiked the proverbial lemonade with strychnine and served it to enough Nielsen families to ensure his network would finish on top. Zucker's got to get back that killer instinct before someone from the WB beats him up and steals his Joey lunchbox.