When Jon Gruden took the Oakland Raiders job we knew a major shakeup would be coming to ESPN’s Monday Night Football booth as they had to replace their long-time color commentator. Then Sean McDonough exited the booth as well to return to the comfort of college football (where college fans will be thrilled to have him back on Saturdays), leaving the Worldwide Leader scrambling to fill both spots in their NFL booth.
Given that ESPN gets only one NFL game a week, they don’t have other NFL play-by-play talent to draw from, so much like with McDonough they are pulling from their college football staff to fill that role. Joe Tessitore, a beloved and veteran figure in the college football booth, has been tabbed as McDonough’s replacement. Tessitore checks all the boxes having been with ESPN for 16 years and helming their Saturday night primetime game recently.
Tessitore will be joined by Jason Witten, who ESPN convinced to retire from the Dallas Cowboys to hop into the booth as an analyst. This means three of the four top broadcast teams in the NFL will feature a color commentator that was a former Cowboy, as Witten join’s CBS’ Tony Romo and Fox’s Troy Aikman for that honor — NBC’s Chris Collinsworth is the lone non-Cowboy.
Lisa Salters will remain on the sidelines as the only holdover from the old crew and will be joined by Booger MacFarland, who will take on a role of field-level analyst, something we haven’t seen on an NFL broadcast since Fox tried out Tony Siragusa in that role for a few years (unless you count CBS using Jay Feely as an on the field kicking analyst).
That quartet will handle Raiders-Rams the first week of the season, leaving ESPN’s b-squad with the Jets-Lions Monday night opener.
