Tirico, Jaworski, Kornheiser Like 1950s College Students in a Phone Booth

A look inside Monday Night Football.

I noted earlier that the physical size of the operation ESPN brings to town for Monday Night Football goes far beyond what you see on TV.

But the guys you do see on TV -- announcers Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Tony Kornheiser -- are, at least at the Metrodome, crammed into a tiny booth. They look like they're doing some good, old-fashioned 1950s phone booth cramming.The booth is so small that when viewers saw them on camera before the game, they were in a different booth because the main broadcast booth wasn't big enough for a cameraman and the TelePrompTer Kornheiser used for his opening.

Ordinarily there are six people in ESPN's booth -- the three on-air guys, plus a statistician and two spotters, one who helps Tirico see basic information like who made a tackle, and one who goes over more detailed Xs and Os with Jaworski like what type of coverage the secondary was in. Tonight they're not able to fit everyone in, though, so Jaworski's spotter is in a separate booth. Jaws can push a button on his mic and talk to him through his headset without the viewers at home hearing it.

Oh, and if you're wondering what kind of qualifications a person would need to have to help Jaws with Xs and Os, Jaworski's spotter was a quarterback at Bryant College.