According to Sean McDonough he is happy to be moving on from the Monday Night Football booth he once dreamed of having. Monday Night Football is one of the greatest gigs for an announcer., but apparently it really wasn’t much fun.
On WEEI, McDonough made it clear he did not think MNF was all that it was cracked up to be.
“As much as it was a great honor to be the voice of ‘Monday Night Football’ — and you guys know me well enough, and certainly a lot of my friends and family do — it wasn’t a tremendous amount of fun the last two years.”
“If you go back and look at the schedule, generally we got one of the worst NFL games each week. You’re trying to make something sound interesting and exciting that isn’t.” said McDonough
Apparently playing second fiddle to Jon Gruden grew tiresome, as it was the Gruden show each and every week.
For me, part of it was just the way the booth was set up the last two years. It was really geared around Jon Gruden. That’s not unusual, TV really is an analyst-driven medium. Jon had a particular set of skills that he did really well, and foremost among them was analyzing the play, breaking down the play, ‘here’s why they ran that play, here’s why it worked, here’s what this guy did or didn’t do.’ It was really football heavy, X and O heavy, and I think most play-by-play guys, all play-by-play guys, would’ve felt like a bit of a bystander.”
Now Monday Night Football has one new guy, Joe Tessitore, and they’re still on the hunt for the second announcer. Without Gruden it’s going to be tough to get excited about who’s calling the games. They still need good match ups first and foremost. As long as people are betting on games and playing fantasy fooball, it’s always a game to watch.
