"Pros," which returns tomorrow night at 10, has a very simple premise: Regular Joes who imagine themselves superior athletes enter competitions with real former sports stars.

Last year that meant blocking for superstar wide receiver Jerry Rice and going up against Dennis Rodman in a rebounding challenge. The first episode of the new season has our Joes trying to cover former Dallas Cowboy wide receiver Michael Irvin and challenging former big leaguer Jose Canseco in a Home Run Derby contest.

“Pros” taps into a primal urge for so many men, likely nurtured over years sitting on the couch, to prove they've still got it, if in fact they ever had it, it being the ability to put that NBA superstar in his place or tackle that all-pro running back.

The central problem with "Pros," which quickly became apparent in last season's early episodes, is that once you’ve seen one episode you truly have seen them all. The competitions quickly become repetitive. The Joes are boring and largely interchangeable, spouting out lines like “you guys better be scared.”

The pros are not scared, the Joes muff their shot, turning their one chance at fame into humiliation, face in the mud, and then it's on to the next non-event.

That forces the series to rely heavily on the charisma of the athletes involved, which this season includes an impressive array of talent. And it works when the episode has big personalities like Irvin and Rice. But when the camera settles on deadly dull guys like baseball player Matt Williams, "Pros" quickly sinks.

Also, there's a certain seaminess to what's an obvious attempt to exploit the worst kind of jock worship among TV fans.

And yet "Pros" has a special charm that draws one in, and it is not the competition but rather the goofiness of it all.

There's the cruel entertainment in watching once-top athletes trying, in some cases desperately, to show they've still got it by beating the likes of beer truck drivers and dietitians. You have Canseco, Irvin and Darryl Strawberry attempting to salvage their dignity through a fourth-rate reality TV competition after years of being savaged and humiliated in the tabloids.

Then there's Petros Papadakis, "Pros's" host, the former USC football captain and perhaps the least-telegenic television personality since Louie Anderson helmed “Family Feud.”

He's the real secret weapon of “Pros,” bringing to it a beady-eyed sweatiness that's just right on but also a surprisingly deft sense of sarcasm and wit. Well-known on the West Coast for his now-defunct radio program, Papadakis peppers the show with clever commentary about the Joes’ shortcomings, at one point perfectly describing one faltering Joe as “windmilling like a 6-year-old in a fight with his big brother.”

If there one failing, it's that the producers keep Papadakis on the sidelines too much. As it is, “Pros vs. Joes” falls into that vast middle ground of basic cable television programming, a show that serves to define Spike's intent as a men's network but little more. With more Papadakis and a bit more daring, it would be a lot more fun.