The 2018 season of Monday Night Football was a highly scrutinized one, as ESPN replaced Jon Gruden with Jason Witten, fresh out of retirement. While Witten may have blown them away in testing and the interview, it didn’t translate to the actual game broadcasts and he was routinely criticized for weak or nonsensical analysis.
Adding to the frustration of Witten’s struggles as the lead analyst was the presence of Booger McFarland on the broadcast as the detached third member of the booth, perched atop the Booger-mobile on the sidelines. McFarland, who made the move from the college football studio show to MNF, was much better at bringing coherent analysis, and as the season went on he steadily became a much bigger part of the broadcast than he had initially — by the end of the season he was in the booth with Witten and Joe Tessitore.
So, when Jason Witten announced he was ending retirement and returning to the Cowboys, ESPN was left with a decision to make. McFarland was always the frontrunner to replace Witten as lead analyst, but whether they would run with a two-man booth and Lisa Salters on the sidelines or add another analyst was the main question. On Wednesday, we got our answer as ESPN announced there would be no major shakeups and Tessitore, McFarland, and Salters would make up 2019’s Monday Night Football crew.
“Booger’s insight, personality and passion for the game make him the right person for the job. He and Joe have been close friends since they helped ESPN launch the SEC Network five years ago. Their chemistry together in the booth – and with Lisa – will give us a team that fans want to spend Monday nights with this fall,” said Stephanie Druley, ESPN Executive Vice President, Event and Studio Production.
Given how poorly their efforts at making a “splash” hire went a year ago, this seems like the right move. The only addition that would have made a clear upgrade to the booth in terms of internal promotion would have been adding Louis Riddick, who routinely brings the best analysis in the company.
ESPN has long been rumored to have interest in Peyton Manning, but he’s never shown interest in return to be a regular game analyst. Beyond Manning, there’s not a clear top guy out there that would’ve been sure to improve the broadcast and get more people to tune in, so for at least this year they made the right move. In 2020, however, expect ESPN to make an aggressive push for Tony Romo, whose contract at CBS will run up, as the ex-Cowboys quarterback has become the best color commentator in all of sports in just two years on the job.
