[St. Loser Fan]

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/new ... vq96kbkcq6

ESPN tried to make Sean McVay the new Jon Gruden of 'Monday Night Football,' report says

ESPN didn't make much of a splash in naming its new "Monday Night Football" announcing team for 2020. But if it was able to lure Sean McVay from the sidelines to the broadcast booth, it would have.

The New York Post's Andrew Marchand reports that ESPN talked to McVay about taking over as "MNF's" lead color commentator whenever his head-coaching days with the Rams are over. In courting McVay, the network was looking at Jon Gruden's one-time protege to be the next Jon Gruden on television.
Gruden was 45 and had coached in the NFL for 11 years with the Raiders and Buccaneers before being hired by ESPN in 2009. He had a Super Bowl ring and had just come off being fired. During his nine-season run on "MNF," his football knowledge and folksy personality was a big hit, to the point that he once was the network's highest-paid employee.

McVay turned only 34 this year and is into his fourth year coaching the Rams, the team he took to the Super Bowl only two seasons ago. There's no sense that he's burning out or not enjoying what he loves to do most. Marchand reports that ESPN wanted to simply plant the seed of hiring him in the future, near or distant.

Since the winning duo of Gruden and Mike Tirico, ESPN has struggled to get the ideal marquee combination for "MNF." When Tirico left, Gruden didn't have the same chemistry with Sean McDonough. Then Gruden went back to coaching the Raiders. Then came the Joe Tessitore and Jason Witten disappointment, which gave way to the Tessitore-Booger McFarland disaster.

This season, ESPN has elevated its former backup "MNF" team of Steve Levy, Brian Griese and Louis Riddick to first string. Past successes of college football and studio work should clean up some of the mess, but it's still not the most marquee lineup for Monday nights.

With no Peyton Manning in play, Tony Romo being locked up by CBS and Drew Brees already lined up for NBC, the youthful, winsome Gruden-derivative McVay made sense as a target.

While it's true that McVay that would have a much higher national profile on "Monday Night Football" vs. coaching Jared Goff and a Los Angeles team with a limited fan base, he's in the right place, at least for right now.

[rams74]

Sounds like tampering to me. The NFL is their golden goose, but they're trying to lure away the NFL's brightest mind, who would then turn around and do analysis of an NFL without its brightest mind. That's counterproductive.

Go away, ESPN! Leave Sean alone!

[Hacksaw]

BSPN, the NIKE of networks.
Pedal to the meddle.
MNF hasn't been the same since it left ABC.

[PARAM]

Quite right about ESPN. They got out in front of their skiis too far and NFL fans suffer for it. When ABC had MNF, ESPN had SNF, NBC and CBS had the Sunday games, all was right in the NFL world. Think if we had that arrangement with NFLN doing TNF! ESPN has been going downhill for years. Time for a shake up.

On McVay, tampering is a stretch since they didn't want him for 2020 or 2021. "When he's had enough of coaching" is a round about way of tamperimg but it wouldn't surprise me if he ended up on MNF, whatever network has it in 2030 or so.