![]() That’s the most fitting way to describe yesterday’s slate of NFL games. I just remember this season being extremely awkward1999: Michaels and Esiason.Chaotic. And second, with the announcing team failing to set the world on fire, they started taking goofy chances with the halftime show, paving the way for Tim McGraw's 'I like it, I love it' highlight song that had hundreds of thousands of country-music haters inadvertently humming the chorus on the way to work this winter, realizing what they were doing, then debating whether to veer into oncoming traffic.)1998: Michaels, Dierdorf and Boomer Esiason. I thought it was interesting that he went to CBS and immediately became a normal person again.(Two other crucial subplots from this era: First, Lynn Swann started as a sideline reporter, paving the way for the Eric Dickerson/Lisa Guerrero hirings that pretty much redefined the parameters of unintentional comedy as we knew it. Michaels seemed considerably more distraught, but for what reason? Everything shifts over to ESPN next season.Īnd since Gifford was already filling that role, Dierdorf had to resort to a steady stream of 'Ho ho hos!' And 'I'm not so sure he isn't the strongest human being on the planet!' And 'You think these guys don't care about this game!' And all that faux humor/sweeping hyperbole that drives us crazy. Everyone forgets this now, but back in the summer of 2000, Sports Illustrated slapped Miller's mug on the cover with the headline 'Can Dennis Miller Save Monday Night Football?' Clearly, the 'Monday Night' franchise was struggling more than anyone wanted to believe.During the last few years, the ship was righted (somewhat) with the Michaels-Madden-Tafoya team, although Michaels and Madden had been working separately for too long and were too settled in their respective shticks to click on a substantial level - they always reminded me of one of those powerhouse duets from the '80s (when celebrity duets were all the rage), like when Frank Sinatra teamed with Bono on 'I've Got You Under My Skin.' During the final minutes on Monday night, it seemed like Madden wanted to feel emotional, only he wasn't invested like during his final Fox game with Summerall (when both guys choked up). Did anyone really care? Only the Miller Experiment mattered, and that was because ABC was making a conscious decision to shift away from straightforward football into sports entertainment although there was a sense of desperation to the move, like they wanted to reinvent the franchise and didn't know exactly how to pull it off. ![]()
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