When No. 1 Louisiana State and No. three Clemson finally kick it off in Monday night time’s school football nationwide championship recreation on ESPN, sixteen days could have handed for the reason that teams last took the field in anger for the semifinals. 2018 brought in a shakeup of the sales space. Jon Gruden left MNF after 9 seasons and returned to teaching with the Oakland Raiders and was replaced by Jason Witten , previously a tight end for the Dallas Cowboys. eleven Sean McDonough left the booth as effectively after 2 seasons to return to calling faculty football video games on the community, and was changed by Joe Tessitore 12 thirteen As well as, Booger McFarland , who has been a school soccer analyst for the network since 2014, joined the MNF staff as subject analyst and guide. 14 Lastly, rules analyst Gerald Austin left MNF to work as an adviser to Gruden and the Raiders and was replaced by just lately retired referee Jeff Triplette 15 Lisa Salters remained the sideline reporter.
The MNF†production in recent times has been an train in distracting viewers from the very fact it not gets the most effective prime-time matchups; NBC does for its Sunday evening staff of Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth. Romo would add buzz to the collection as a modern Madden. Can he add enough new eyeballs to justify the money, though? It seems ESPN is determined to find out.
While the rankings for Monday Evening Football this season have elevated, the duo of Tessitore and McFarland have been oft-criticized, and the subject of numerous memes throughout all social media platforms. Few would object to changing so-so analyst Booger McFarland — to not mention bombastic play-by-play man Joe Tessitore — on MNF.†Their work on such a significant showcase displays badly on the ESPN model.
ESPN is rumored to be attempting to acquire CBS’s remaining three years left on their SEC contract. Such a transfer might make Brad Nessler an option, though I think about a) CBS would at the very least need one remaining 12 months of SEC football before handing over to ESPN b) Nessler would like to stay on calling SEC video games. That said, this might give ESPN another in-home option, and one which has a historical past of calling NFL video games.
ESPN increased-ups, according to sources, hold CBS’ lead NFL sport producer Jim Rikhoff in high regard. Rikhoff, not coincidentally, works weekly with Romo. Rikhoff, though, is underneath contract with CBS, so that idea is outwardly dead. Historically, ESPN appears to be like to promote from within and should turn to its school soccer crew for its subsequent MNF†producer.