In a press release on Wednesday, ESPN announced that Ron Jaworski has signed a five-year extension with the company for a “new, expanded multiplatform NFL analyst role” that will include various appearance on their NFL programs. What it will not include is sitting in the announcers booth during the 2012 season.
As Pro Football Talk pointed out, the folks at ESPN did their best to try to overshadow the fact that Jaws has been removed from the Monday Night Football broadcast. They said Jaworski will have a greater “year-round presence” on ESPN and mentioned that Monday Night Football will feature a “new two-person commentator team” of Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden. In other words, Jaws was given the boot.
As for whether or not last year’s S-bomb had anything to do with the move, I doubt it. From a personal standpoint, this is somewhat disappointing. Of the three that used to call games on Monday Night Football, Jaws is the best at talking football. Gruden obviously knows the game, but how many more “this guys” and “that guys” are we going to hear now that he only has one other person to compete with for air time? This could get painful.
