Monday Night Football is as American as the hot dog. It represents the end of the NFL weekend and a chance for gamblers to increase their winnings from Sunday and attempt to get even with their losses. It is a great sports tradition in this country, but since ESPN has taken over the duties of covering the game in 2006 they have tarnished the Monday Night Football game little by little, game by game, week by week. And there is one reason for this. Tony Kornheiser as a color commentator.
Mike Tirico is a fine play-by-play man. Ron Jaworski is a good color man and analyst, though he could get off his high horse about his great “challenge” rate, seeing as though he has only had to deal with the easiest of challenges.
Together the two would make an entertaining broadcast team and give the millions and millions of viewers exactly what they want while watching Monday Night Football, but instead Tony Kornheiser is there to ruin it.
You ever heard of the saying “three’s a crowd?” I’m sure you have. Everyone has. And it is a saying for a reason. And you think it would have crossed the minds of the suits at ESPN who thought it was a good idea to squeeze Kornheiser into the booth.
Tony Kornheiser is a great columnist and he is a great TV personality on Pardon the Interruption, but he is far from being a decent football commentator. Kornheiser isn’t just there during the game, chiming in here and there with a logical thought to fill in the gaps of dead air. Instead he is there trying to have his voice heard over Tirico and over Jaworski and trying to put his thoughts above everything else.
At least three times a game when the trio can’t think of anything else intelligent or football related to say, Tirico will ask Kornheiser what “the column for tomorrow’s paper would look like to this point in the game.” And Tony responds with a summary of what has already happened in the game. It is just a relentless cycle that is not needed in the broadcast. But the only reason why Tirico asks Kornheiser this question is to make him part of the broadcast and to not leave him out. Because no one at home cares about what Tony Kornheiser thinks about the game. The people at home care what Tirico says because he is relaying what exactly is happening and giving every player’s name and they care about what Ron Jaworski says because he is there to tell the viewers why a player did this, or why this play was called, or what went wrong on defense. And after all those things are covered, there is nothing left for Kornheiser to say except what his column would be about.
That is all Tony Kornheiser brings to the table on Monday Night Football. That’s it. And that’s nothing. So he brings nothing at all to the table. Except for his comb over I guess. But even that is only shown in the pre-game and post-game.
Once again, don’t get me wrong. Kornheiser is a talented writer and a good arguer for a sports show, but putting him in the broadcast booth for close to four hours every Monday night in front of tens of millions is not a good business move. People are going to watch Monday Night Football whether Tony Kornheiser is part of the broadcast team or not, but ESPN could greatly enhance their program with his removal.
I understand that ESPN isn’t about to cut Tony from their team in the middle of the season, but they could come up with an excuse to not have him return for the 2009 season. We can only hope.