For the second straight year, ESPN will air a Monday Night Football doubleheader to kick off the NFL season. Last year, the team broadcasting the late game was hailed by bloggers and media analysts as one of the best broadcast teams on television — despite the fact that they only worked one game together.
The team of Brad Nessler, Ron Jaworski and Dick Vermeil was a one-hit wonder. And while Jaworski is moving onto the main Monday Night Football team, ESPN is going in a different direction for its back-up team this year.
Lead Arena Football League broadcast team Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic will be joined in the booth by Mike Ditka for the second half of the opening week double-header game this year.
While this is relatively unsurprising — ESPN has been making great strides to promote the Mike and Mike brand, using Greenberg and Golic on the aforementioned AFL broadcasts as well as on coverage of the Spelling Bee — USA Today media analyst Michael McCarthy makes a fairly bold statement, saying he would not “be surprised to see some or all of the Greenberg-Golic group replace [Tirico, Jaworski and Kornheiser].”
McCarthy quotes Greenberg as saying, “I want Tony [Kornheiser] to do that job as long as he wants to do it. Then when he retires, I want them to give it to me. … It’s the best gig in the whole business ? and the biggest gig in the whole business.” Interesting that Greenberg would consider replacing Kornheiser, as opposed to replacing Mike Tirico, who is the play-by-play voice of MNF.
