Theismann Bounced from MNF

Are you freaking kidding me?

I can't believe this. Oft I have given of harshness to Joe Theismann but never have I thought he was a bad analyst. As something of a football Puritan, I like his serious demeanor and his knowledgeability and all that more than outweighs his proclivity for distancing himself from the Redskins and that funny way in which quarterbacks always seem to relate everything on the field back to the quarterback position.

So I just cannot believe ESPN has sacked Joe, and not only that, it was a surprise to Joe and it happened for the sake of keeping Tony Kornheiser! If you needed more conclusive evidence that Tony is an infighter and an insider, this is it: Joe was not unhappy with Tony per se, but rather unhappy that ESPN would bring a clown into hallowed territory. This therefore reflected on Joe's opinion of ESPN management, not specifically of Tony Kornheiser. Management came down with Tony, an insider's insider and that was that.

Joe was the ESPN Sunday Night Football analyst from its second season on ESPN in 1988 through its last, the 2005 season. That's 17 years the network has entrusted him as the face and voice of football analysis. 2006 was the first season since its inception in 1970 that Monday Night Football was not on a broadcast network, having moved over to ESPN cable and the Sunday night game moving from ESPN cable to NBC broadcast. For the move, ESPN sent Mike Patrick and Paul Maguire packing and brought in Mike Tirico as the play by play guy. After a long tryout season, Tony Kornheiser was selected to be the third guy, a decision I wrote about in August 2006.

The mention of Ron Jaworski as Joe's replacement is interesting because Ron is a player from Joe's era and someone I also consider to be a good analyst. Whereas Ron does not have Joe's blow-dried look or his limp, their styles are very similar. They both tell you what's happening now on the field and neither of them is a particularly funny. If they are trying to lighten the mood by bringing in someone with less of a sense of religion about football, they are making a huge mistake because Joe Theismann just loves to being Joe Theismann. Ron Jaworski, that guy lives in a bunker and reviews game film for a living.

So this is all about personalities. That tension that you thought you felt between Joe and Tony, it was real. No doubt Joe felt deep contempt for silly bits like Tony! Tony! Tony! and for all the things Tony did that made the product not about football but rather about Tony. I am with Joe in that the product sells itself and if I want a festival atmosphere I'll go work for the carnival. Tony is not a national phenomenon outside the demographic ESPN already owns, and look what happened last time they went outside football looking to expand viewership (oof, Dennis Miller stinking up the joint).

They just cashiered a field general to protect a politcal appointee.

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Spence at War Cry is ahead of me on this story and I disagree with his first point on the Tony-Joe friction. I do not think Joe disrespected Tony's knowledge of football. Tony is not and never will be a football analyst, he comments on the sport. Once he was elevated to columnist status he never again had to know anything about football other than how to churn out 1000 words on deadline. I can respect that, since Curly R is written as much in opinion format as it is in straight reporting format. It's not that I think Tony knows nothing about football, it's that I know Joe has been following the league, players, teams, strategies and tactics very closely for 20 years. Tony has not and their analysis roles in the booth were clearly delineated. I think that Joe disrespected Tony's presence in the first place, which amounts to Joe questioning ESPN management's original decision to bring him in. Joe did not win this infight and he's out.

I will agree with Spence's second point, and that is that Tony is the one that should have been booted. Hell, I thought after the Dennis Miller debacle that the right way to attract a diverse audience would be to bring in a guest boothie on a rotating basis. One or two games and done. That way over the course of the season you could bring in the football gods, the comedians, the stars of the new shows, people we did not know knew so much about football and keep it fresh. Week after week with Dennis Miller going off on those ridiculous historical references, I'm surprised Al Michaels never went R. Budd Dwyer on us.

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Update 27 March 2007: Tony has nothing but praise for Joe on his radio show the next day.


Tony Kornheiser, Mike Tirico and Joe Theismann: Jim Mone / AP from here.