ESPN is going to begin anew with its Monday Night Football booth, per a report by The Athletics Richard Deitsch. The network will not bring back play-by-play broadcaster Joe Tessitore nor analyst Booger McFarland.<\/p>\n
ESPN will hire within the company to replace them and the two will remain in prominent roles at ESPN, per the report. That confirms a New York Post report earlier this week that pegged Steve Levy, Louis Riddick and Dan Orlovsky as in-house candidates for the job.<\/p>\n
Last week, ESPN tapped Phil Dean, who has been with the network since 1992, to produce the weekly primetime game.<\/p>\n
The MNF booth has been a question mark for quite a while. Jason Witten was not a hit with fans in his one year in the booth. He returned to the Dallas Cowboys last offseason. And McFarland got off to a bad start with viewers in the Booger mobile, which placed him at field level while commenting. It obstructed views and was retired for the 2019 schedule.<\/p>\n
Whoever calls games this season will have a great schedule to work with after the NFL released it late last week in a three-hour show on ESPN. When Monday Night Football moved from ABC to ESPN, it seemingly took a backseat to NBCs Sunday Night Football in getting the best games of the week in primetime.<\/p>\n
The company reportedly wanted to bring over Tony Romo from CBS, where hes been a star since jumping into the booth a few years ago. Romo instead agreed to a record deal with CBS on the No. 1 broadcast team.<\/p>\n
Story continues<\/p>\n
Then ESPN moved on to Peyton Manning, reportedly offering $18 to $20 million per year higher than Romos $17M to be its lead analyst. The dream was reportedly to combine Manning and play-by-play legend Al Michaels, currently of NBC, though that didnt pan out either.<\/p>\n
Theyre still reportedly eyeing New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees to take over once he retires.<\/p>\n
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Report: Joe Tessitore, Booger McFarland will not return to ESPN's MNF booth - Yahoo Sports<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ESPN is going to begin anew with its Monday Night Football booth, per a report by The Athletics Richard Deitsch. The network will not bring back play-by-play broadcaster Joe Tessitore nor analyst Booger McFarland Continue reading