ESPN will have new announcing team for 'Monday Night Football' this NFL season
ESPN Monday Night Football hosts Booger McFarland and Joe Tessitore in the broadcast booth before an NFL football game between the New Orleans Saints and the Houston Texans in New Orleans, Monday, Sept. 9, 2019. Credit: AP/Gerald Herbert
ESPN will have a new announcing team for “Monday Night Football” when the NFL returns.
Joe Tessitore and Booger McFarland are out, The Athletic reported on Saturday, ending months of speculation that the network would move on from the oft-criticized duo.
The report said that Tessitore and McFarland both would retain “prominent” roles at ESPN and that they would be replaced internally.
That presumably would make a leading play-by-play candidate ESPN veteran Steve Levy, who attended Bellmore JFK High School and grew up a Jets fan.
Levy made his “Monday Night Football” debut in the second game of an opening week doubleheader last year, calling a game with analysts Brian Griese and Louis Riddick, both of whom are among the likely candidates for a regular “Monday Night Football” assignment.
In an interview with Newsday at the time, Levy gushed about the opportunity, saying, “I’ve been quite honest with everybody; I’m real. I am not the guy to say, ‘Hey, once they kick off it’s just another football game.’ That’s just not true. That’s not accurate. This is the culmination of a lot of work and a long time in the business.”
He also said, “It’s really cool for my family and my close, longtime friends, who always knew this was a dream of mine. When people ask, ‘What was the dream job?,’ it was never to do the NHL. It wasn’t. It was always ‘Monday Night Football.’”
ESPN's Steve Levy on July 31, 2019. Credit: ESPN Images/Joe Faraoni
Dan Orlovsky also could be in the mix as an analyst on the new team.
Tessitore and McFarland started on Monday nights in 2018, when Jason Witten was part of their group and McFarland worked from a sideline cart in a much-maligned gimmick.
Witten un-retired as a player after that season and McFarland joined Tessitore in the booth. Reviews of their performance were mixed, at best.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
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