Theismann leaves ESPN.

Longtime ESPN NFL analyst Joe Theismann, who as recently as last year was the lead analyst on Monday Night Football, has agreed with ESPN to terminate his relationship with the network.

Theismann, who began working for ESPN nineteen years ago, was replaced in the Monday Night Football booth by Ron Jaworski last April. In July, Theismann told Washington Post writer Leonard Shapiro, “It was a total and complete shock to me that they were going to make a change … I’m very disappointed.” Those comments, in addition to other later statements, indicated that there was some bitterness about ESPN’s decision. Speaking to Metro Boston News in June, Theismann said:

I?m not happy with what happened. When you sit down in a meeting and they tell you that you?ve had your best year ever … and tell me that they didn?t like the fact that I talked about football, you have a little trouble trying to process how you could have done better. For Mike [Tirico] and Tony [Kornheiser] and Ron, it?ll be a learning process again, because Ron hasn?t done television. Tony is extremely neurotic. … I felt like the last six games we really settled in as a real solid team, all of us. And now, they?ll have to re-create that chemistry again. … Monday Night Football cannot be an extension of Pardon The Interruption, because the game is too important. That?s just the way I feel.

Theismann was offered other roles within ESPN, including work on college football coverage; however, he rejected those overtures, saying through an agent that he wanted “to stay focused on the NFL.”