Another game, and another unimpressive Monday night for Tony Kornheiser. Two weeks into the season is still way too soon to call this a failed experiment, but Kornheiser's more on the Darko Milicic career path than the Dwyane Wade career path. He's giving us nothing right now, but there's still hope that he'll be serviceable in the future.He mirrored the game he was broadcasting. He was again tentative and conservative, thinking it better to just lay back and stick to the tried and true, as opposed to swinging for the fences every now and then. But I don't think ESPN hired him for the tried and true. They hired him to be something new and different, and thus far, he's been unwilling to do that.
• Kornheiser said of the Steelers/Jags game at one point, in a comment about the expectations for the game, "Nobody expected this to be a 35-0 blowout." I don't know why anyone would have expected that, or why it was noteworthy. It's like saying, "Nobody said that Joey Porter was going to read from The Iliad at halftime" to inspire his team.
• The celebrity in the booth this week was Miami Heat basketball star Dwyane Wade, a guy who's always been pretty conservative with the media. Kornheiser asked him if he'd guarantee a gold medal for the United States in the 2008 Olympics. Wade answered with a standard, "say the right thing" answer that I can't even remember. Tony then asks Wade what would happen if the NBA held the 2003 draft again, where would Wade be drafted. Wade's answer was again predictable and completely bland. An absolutely worthless segment, unless you really enjoy hearing Dwyane Wade's fake laugh.
• Kornheiser mentioned his fantasy team again. This time, it was at a critical point in the game, where the Jags were finally able to establish some offense with a couple of completions to Matt Jones. Kornheiser picked then to tell everyone how great the receptions were for his fantasy team. That's something I stopped doing after about the 2nd week of my fantasy football life.
Mainly, Kornheiser sticks to relating stories and quoting unusual statistics, things that anyone could do, which is a shame, because he's entertaining on PTI and on his radio show in a way that few other people can be.
He's got to stop approaching this like he's Trent Dilfer, and start going after it like Brett Favre. Yeah, he might have a few 5 interception games, but the games that people remember are the 300-yard, 4 touchdown games, and I think Kornheiser might have it in him to be that good. He seems unwilling to find out, though.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-19-2006 @ 10:05AM
CooterPunch said...
You've gotta give him kudos for mentioning the fact ESPN didn't need to show us diagrams of Big Ben's appendix anymore though!
If you don't remember the appendectomy 101 lesson from ESPN, click here -
http://cooterpunch.blogspot.com/2006/09/monday-night-football-appendectomy-101.html
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9-19-2006 @ 10:08AM
kori said...
i thought the bit about the "too graphic" appendicitis chart they had showed was cheesy and annoying. its obvious these people never sat through sex ed and saw a live birth of a baby.
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9-19-2006 @ 10:50AM
arielito said...
... screwing up PTI and adding nothing to MNF
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9-19-2006 @ 12:45PM
Sean said...
I found Kornheiser incredible annoying. He kept repeating himself after Theisman would ignore his initial joke. He's grating and he doesn't appear to know all that much about football.
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9-19-2006 @ 1:18PM
Joseph said...
Why not can Tony and Joe, and get Dick V. and Jaws on with Tirico.
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9-19-2006 @ 7:11PM
Rosemary Wozniak said...
It seems that Joe Theisman has made up his mind that he doesn't want Tony K. in the booth and does everything in his power to intimidate him or he just plain ignores him. Also, they could do away with the "celebrity of the week". I watch for the football. I don't need unnecessary babble.
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9-19-2006 @ 2:22PM
sam d. said...
I agree. I moved to the DC area three years ago and had never really heard of this guy before. Then I saw his books, heard his radio show and so I started keeping an eye out for his column in The Washington Post. It isn't funny, it isn't informative. He never actually talks to anybody.
By contrast, his PTI-mate gets out there, goes to the games, gets in the locker rooms and puts his subjects before himself, and the result is a very, very good sports column, just about every time. I don't know why Tony can't do that. Clearly, he can. I think he thinks he's "too big" to report, or maybe he's worried he's forgotten how. Who knows? He can be good again, if he stops freaking out about what everybody thinks of him and just does what he does. He's on his way to becomin the Joe Cowley of sports broadcasting.
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9-19-2006 @ 3:15PM
J said...
Kornheiser appears to be a good guy... Good for PTI..
Terrible for Monday night football. He brings nothing to the table. He does nothing to pull an audience to him...
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9-19-2006 @ 4:30PM
Mark Bledsoe said...
Tony is bad, no doubt. However, as long as Joey T is in the booth with him he will not be the worse man in there.
I still can not believe ESPN missed their chance to dump him. He is the worse analyst in the history of television IMHO.
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9-19-2006 @ 7:26PM
jds said...
kornholer and joe monday night football is not worth watching unless you mute the volume
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9-19-2006 @ 9:52PM
tim said...
HE HAS GOT TO GO!!!!!!!!!!!
I would say the medicore MNF "crew" would improve by 50-100 if they would DUMP the NOT FUNNY, SMART ASS TONY KORNwhoever.
Hello...ESPN...are you listening? Do you seriously think this is a solid replacement of Al Michaels and John Madden???? That is like comparing the Colts (Al and John) to the Titans (Talirico, Theisman and KornCone).
PLEASE CUT TONY LOOSE!!! I can't take it!!!!!!!
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9-20-2006 @ 11:05AM
Josh said...
The national telecasts have totally crossed over from football to "event". I can only hope for the day when the local radio broadcasts are available as alternate audio for us fans of football.
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9-22-2006 @ 3:35PM
f*ck u said...
"wade's fake laugh" ?
mjd? who the f*ck are you ? mjd? thats right you're a NOBODY. go hate on someone who DOESN'T prove his value.
dumbf*ck
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10-16-2006 @ 10:13PM
Joh T said...
Tony may be a great writer but he stinks on MNF. Let's try it with just 2 guys in the booth and let Tony do a half time bit. Then I can mute just him.
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