On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 3:21 PM, Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote:
> For just the sixth time in its 42-year history on television, "Monday > Night Football" next season will feature a two-person broadcast team. > > Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden will call the games for ESPN starting in > 2012. Ron Jaworski is leaving the booth but has signed a five-year > extension with ESPN in an expanded analyst role with the company. > > > http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7578327/mike-tirico-jon-gruden-duo-call-monday-night-football-games-2012 > I like Jaws better than Gruden, but this makes sense, and is overdue. The 3 Man booth has never really worked (other than the first two trios) Gruden and Jaworski pretty much do the same thing, and putting in a random "everyman" to balance things off has always been awkward. People seem to have drawn the wrong lesson from the original teams - Howard "never played the game", but his whole point was to fight the "jockacracy", and the argument that only former players could speak with serious authority about the game. But Tirico (judging from his comments in the recent ESPN book) is a jackacracy supporter, who sees his role as calling the action and setting up the jock expert. He told Tony Kornheiser that he really didn't see what he could bring to the broadcast, since the jock is the only one qualified to have an opinion about the game. Kornheiser's problem was that he seemed to buy into the assumption that he did not really have a right to analyze the game, and that his job was to bring a "man on the street" perspective to the show. But that is not what Cosell did, and of the three, Meredith was probably the one who brought the "common touch" to the show, and of course he had been an all-pro quarterback. The three man booth works when all three guys are seen as having an equal right to have an opinion - with one of them taking the more low key, call the action role. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
