Jaws Exits Monday Night Football

Added on Feb 15, 2012 by Scott in

NFL

Ron Jaworski has ended his five-year run in the Monday Night Football booth. The longtime ESPN analyst inked a five-year contract extension with the World Wide Leader to participate in various other studio shows, but primetime pigskin is not among them. Apparently, three was a crowd, so now the duties fall to egomaniac play-by-play caller Mike Tirico and the poor man’s John Madden, Jon Gruden.

Jaws delivered the standard pleasantries in a network issued press release.

“I am grateful for having the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of working on Monday Night Football the past five seasons with Mike Tirico, Jon Gruden and so many other talented people behind the scenes who make the show so great,” Jaworksi said in a press release sent out by ESPN.

“I look forward to bringing my passion and knowledge of the game to more fans in more places than ever before on any and all football topics.”

Jaworski knows the game, especially the quarterback position, but he seemed to butt heads with Gruden’s constant stream of nonsense. Just because a guy yells everything doesn’t mean he’s an authority. While he’ll probably never admit it publicly, Jaws didn’t appear to enjoy Gruden’s yee-haw antics.

This will mark the first two-man booth for ESPN NFL broadcasts, which puts them in line with all the other NFL networks that have been using twosomes for decades. Three talking heads is one too many anyway. Maybe one less voice blathering will Monday Night Football tolerable again, although that’s wishful thinking considering Gruden will now have more time to annoy viewers with his endless supply of platitudes.

Jaworski replaced Joe Theismann in the MNF booth in 2007. Prior to that he was the color commentator for Tampa Bay Bucs preseason games. The ex-Eagles signal-caller is also team president of the Arena League’s Philadelphia Soul.

Source: NFL.com