ESPN Names MNF Announcers

[snickers99]

Mike Tirico, Joe Theismann and Tony Kornheiser will be part of a three-man booth calling the games on Monday nights next season and Suzy Kolber and Michelle Tafoya will be sideline reporters.

Not a big fan of this announcement. Although I hardly watch MNF as it is, I'm not a big fan of Mike Tirico or Joe Theismann. And while I like Tony Kornheiser (LOVED his radio show), I'd have to see him in action. Right now, I can't picture him pulling it off.

[momowheeler]

Kornheiser will be a riot I think...... Theismann sucks donkey balls.

[puckhead23]

MNF will never be the same. Frankly, it hasn't been right since the departure of Howard Cosell. ABC/ESPN should just kill MNF. Since it won't, perhaps Theismann will be successful at putting it out of its misery.

Tirico will probably be adequate as a play-by-play guy. I will watch just because of Kornheiser (and Michele Tafoya, of course ). I think it would have been a riot if Theismann was passed over in favor of Mike Wilbon. Could you imagine the booth breaking into an episode of PTI when the game is a blowout (as it often is)? That might be interesting to watch.

[panhandle88]

My friend swears that when Theisman was in college he pronounced his name to sound like "these man". He started using the current pronounciation when he was in the running for the Heisman in college. Can anybody verify this? Either way I still don't care for his announcing and neither can anybody I know.

[snickers99]

Your friend is correct.....

And if you think this Heisman hype is a thing of the recent past, go back to 1968, when Notre Dame got the idea to change the pronunciation of quarterback Joe Theisman's name from "THEES-man" to Theisman, as in Heisman.

It didn't work, but Theisman did finish second to Stanford's Jim Plunkett in 1970.

link on ESPN

[puckhead23]

Either way I still don't care for his announcing and neither can anybody I know.

I am a HUGE Notre Dame fan, and I can't stand him!!!!!!!

[alanpsych]

Yeah, I'd have to agree that between Theismann and Paul MacGuire, they produce some of the most idiotic utterances ever produced by humans.

Another problem is when I turn on the game to watch next year, my first reaction will be, even though I don't mind Kornheiser and Tirico, "Oh, it's just the ESPN crew." I think they've just resigned themselves to the fact that MNF as we knew it is dead. It's just a game that happens to be nationally televised (if you have ESPN).