Tony Kornheiser Leaves Monday Night Football
Pardon the Interruption Co-host Has Fear of Flying
May 20, 2009
ESPN's Monday Night Football will be starting its 40th season with a new play-by-play lineup.
Kornheiser Out and Gruden In
Former Super Bowl-winning head coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jon Gruden, will replace Tony Kornheiser this season in a move that was unexpected.
The three-team crew on Monday Night Football of Kornheiser, Mike Tirico and Ron Jaworski never really worked out and much of it had to do with Kornheiser and his failed comedy act.
Kornheiser co-host's ESPN's Pardon the Interruption with Michael Wilbon and is known for his quick wit, sarcastic comments, and tremendous sports knowledge. Unfortunately for Kornheiser those qualities never translated to Monday Night Football.
Kornheiser cited his "legendary" fear of flying as the reason why he is leaving the booth. He has taken a custom-made, luxury bus for the majority of his "Monday Night Football" games and said that the 2009 schedule was going to force him to fly more this season than in previous years.
Gruden, aka Chucky, Takes the Mic
Kornheiser's replacement is Gruden who has never worked in television. He is known as "Chucky" for his tremendous scowl of disgust during games while coaching that drew comparisons to the evil-doll. He won the 2003 Super Bowl in his first season with the Buccaneers and coached the Oakland Raiders to the AFC Championship game before that.
Monday Night Football has never been the same since the break-up of Al Michaels, Frank Gifford and Dan Dierdorf after the 1997 season. There have been many fill-ins that have not panned out and even the catastrophic mess with comedian Dennis Miller.
After the comedy act of Miller, public opinion assumed comic relief would not re-enter the Monday Night Football scene. But the last three years with Kornheiser proved that wrong.
Kornheiser's comedy rarely fit-in with the flow of the game and his monologues seemed forced. The style that was so popular on the Pardon the Interruption set never made it to Monday night.
Gruden Back to the NFL
Looking forward, the question with Gruden will not be his jokes but rather his attendance. The offensive-guru is just 45-years-old and as coaches are inevitably fired during this season and in the future, will Gruden leave the booth for the sideline rather quickly?
The move to Gruden is, in some respects, as shocking as Kornheiser's departure. This is obviously a short-term move and will not be a team that will work for the next decade.
Gruden also said, "I miss coaching dearly," and he has only been removed from that profession since January of this year.
