Chucky a welcome addition to Monday Night Football

It's been an excellent couple of days for diehard football fans.  On Sunday came the news that Comcast and the NFL Network are close to a deal.  On Monday, ESPN massively upgraded their Monday Night Football lineup by replacing Tony Kornheiser with Jon Gruden.

Look, Tony Kornheiser the PTI host is the likable half of the best sports talk show on television.  Tony Kornheiser the writer and radio host was one of the very best.  But Tony Kornheiser the Monday Night Football analyst was uncomfortable and almost insulting in his role as the "average fan." 

I'd like to think the average fan doesn't want to discuss the same tired storyline for three straight hours.  Frankly, I'd like to listen to someone who knows more about football than the average fan.

Jon Gruden certainly can teach the viewer a few things.  Combined with Ron Jaworski and Mike Tirico, the new ESPN booth may include the most hard-core football analysis of any team in the country.  (Cris Collinsworth is close all by himself.)

Gruden was a natural on the NFL Network's coverage of the draft: funny, very knowledgeable, and not afraid to buck conventional wisdom.  He has made no secret about his desire to return to coaching, so this may just be a one-year experiment.  Then ESPN could possibly transition into a Tirico-Jaws booth, which would be just fine.

Since getting Monday Night Football three years ago, ESPN has slowly turned a terrible original team (Tirico-Theisman-Kornheiser) into a very promising one.  It's almost as if they've listened to the fans.  Imagine that. 

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33 Comments

King said:

Tony Kornheiser quite simply SUCKED as a broadcaster. buh-bye!

Unimpressed said:

FINALLY!!!!!!!

hitnrun said:

Major upgrade. And I don't even know how good Gruden is.

Tony's fine on PTI, but he was clearly out of his league talking to the country about a game in progress.

jim said:

i still say the best in booth team is the same team that filled the booth on sunday nights. ya, thats right.

mike said:

Anybody is better than Kornheiser. Thank goodness and good riddance.

Mike N said:

I never thought the Theismann, Mike Patrick, and Paul (whatever) were too bad myself.

Now if NBC would only get rid of the stuck-up Tiki Barber. I noticed how he got b-slapped with sideline reporter duty while the Bus got to stay and anchor the studio during the playoffs. I think they were sending Tiki an Emmitt-gram.

I agree. Kornheiser does a pretty good job on PTI but was not good on MNF. He kept stating the obvious and repeating the same things over and over, and thought he was funnier than he was. See www.mikefrandsen.org where I broke the story.

johnny said:

Thank somebody, His got canned. Nothing to do with a fear of flying. He just plain SUCKED.
He was worse than Denis Miller and that was bad. He knew somebody I'm sure and begged for the gig. Good riddance to the bad hair combover. Fix the hair, Don Rickles did.

Jeff said:

Now if they would only get rid of Mike Tirico. How he stays on is amazing. He was accused of sexual harassment at ESPN, and they looked the other way.

jverl said:

Dennis Miller was not that bad.Dan Fouts was really coming into his own,but Kornheiser really sucked!!

Viperbomb said:

Its always give an take. unfortunately NBC replaced Madden with Collingswort! Corncheeser, Madden, and Farve are gone that's a good thing!

Bob said:

I'll take Alex Karras over all of them.

Glen said:

The best commentator team was Mike Patrick, Joe Theismann, and Paul Maguire on Sunday Night Football.

mike said:

Kornheiser sucked. Unless my team was playing on Monday night I didn't watch MNF - and he was the sole reason I didn't watch. Absolutely painful. Can't believe it took this long for the braintrust to see it. Yeah - Tony left on his own because he's afraid to fly - oh okay we believe that explanation....

Unimpressed said:

Now, get rid of fatassed Tony Siragusa on the sidelines, the game will be better for it.

George Hayduke said:

It's a good move. ESPN was and may still be a shill for the ABC TV lineup and the crap that the guys in the booth have to talk about in support of some of the lame assed shows was painful, regardless of who was doing the promo.

Still way toooo many celebrity guests and talking about inane stories while ignoring the game at hand. That is pretty universal though. The local baseball guys for my hometown team spend a lot of time talking crap and we sit there and watch the game go by. Although I believe ESPN is the worst at that.

I would like to turn off the sound and listen on radio but they're out of sync. I have DirectTV and the picture is way behind the radio. Too bad TV announcers have lost the ability to convey what's actually happening on the field as the radio guys do.

futbolfan said:

The only news worse than Madden retiring was that they were replacing him with that pompous ass Collinsworth, he's worse than finger nails on a chalkboard...

tvballer said:

Paul Maguire is in the same zip code with Kornheiser. Immeasurably better, but still an abomination.

Gene-O said:

The worst...too much jabbering with rap stars and other crap...no one and I mean no one will ever measure up Howard, Dandy Don and Frank Gifford

Simply the best!!!

ashok said:

I think Tony is very funny on PTI and he struggled with Tirico and Jaws - 2 people with no sense of humour. Cris Collinsworth is obnoxious and irritating, I will stay away from Sunday Night Football

Joe said:

The MNF game is more important than who the announcers are. Personally, I liked Kornheiser because he reminds me of Howard Cosell. But, he always seemed like he didn't think he was worthy of the assignment and that shows up in your body of work. I say put Wilbon in the MNF booth!

tonyklover said:

PTI is the greatest sports program on TV, thanks to Wilbon and Tony. Tony was absolutely great on MNF. I don't see how he can be considered an "average fan" though, due to his inside knowledge. Chucky will give us more football insight, but Tony's personality is irreplaceable. Tony, thanks for the memories. I sincerely hope that this was Tony's decision and not the decision of the four letter network.

Michael said:

Come on..........Jaworski won't shut up and Tirico is a stuffed shirt with no personality. They should have fired them both, kept Tony, and added Wilbon.

dheat said:

Hey tony was not that bad. He did his best. I dont know why he getting bashed How many of you are sober when you watch Mnf anyway? Who cares. Jaws carries that hole team anyway. Thanks Tony you may not have been madden but you were yourself.

ross said:

Now get that eagle loving jaworski out of there and i would start watching again!

goose said:

tony sucked, sucked and stil sucked

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jersey said:

They should have fired them both, kept Tony, and added Wilbon

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