Tony Kornheiser is an enigma. After being kicked out of the Monday Night Football booth for Jon Gruden in 2009, he of Pardon the Interruption fame was suspended by ESPN earlier this year for “sexist” comments about Hannah Storm’s wardrobe. Nevertheless, the Korn has kept on keeping on despite the hate from feminists, bureaucrats, and now, Aaron Rodgers. Brett Favre’s replacement had less than kind things to say about the pride and joy of Binghamton.

“You know who was better than Tony Kornheiser? Dennis Miller was ten times better,” Rodgers said, via SportsRadioInterviews.com. “Dennis Miller was a great comedian, but one of the worst Monday Night Football guys ever. And he was ten times better than Tony Kornheiser. His stuff was actually funny. Tony wasn’t funny at all. He did absolutely no research. We’d sit in those production meetings and he would add absolutely nothing to the conversation. I’d be like, ‘What are we doing here? This is stupid.’” –PFT

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a fan of the Korn. As a fan, I’ll also admit that his color commentary couldn’t even approach John Madden levels. But Dennis Miller? Really? The guy has written nothing but political jokes for the past decade. I can only listen to “liberals are so stupid” so many times before I want to take a blunt object to my head.

Honestly, I’m hard pressed to name someone in sports funnier than the Korn. The way he declares himself victorious over Mike Wilbon, and his “Goodnight, Canada!” shtick always make me laugh. I don’t think there’s a PTI episode where he hasn’t made me laugh. He certainly should stay far away from the broadcast booth. Mike Tirico couldn’t even make him look good, and Tirico has somehow managed to keep Jaws and Gruden employed.

Tony Kornheiser will not be returning to the broadcast booth of ESPN’s Monday Night Football, the network reported today. He’ll be replaced by former Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden. Neil Best at Newsday is reporting that Kornheiser is leaving of his own accord.

Kornheiser cited the grind of the travel schedule, which from the start has been his biggest complaint about the job. He has an intense fear of flying and tried to avoid doing so whenever possible.

Only six of ESPN’s regular-season games in 2009 are scheduled for the Eastern Time Zone (Kornheiser lives in Washington, D.C.), and there are games in Oakland, San Diego, Denver and San Francisco.

Tony Kornheiser obviously got the job because of his successes in radio and with PTI, but this was a bad fit from the start. But like Dan Levy once said of Kornheiser, who in their right mind would say no to Monday Night Football? Apparently, Kornheiser. No one’s really sure how much of an upgrade Gruden is over TK, but I suspect that Jaworski will no longer have to feign interest in his colleague’s ramblings for extended periods of time.

|via KSK, img from On Frozen Blog|

Despite whether or not you enjoy Tony Kornheiser’s work on Monday Night Football (I don’t), there aren’t too many people that can disseminate an opinion in two minutes or less better than the Orange roundie. Here he is on The Today Show defending remarks he made on PTI last night about Matt Lauer lying about hitting a deer with his bicycle. I found it especially humerous. Probably because I want Lauer to die in a Texas fire, but that’s me.

And how relevant is that show now since their three lead stories were their co-anchor getting hurt and a couple of YouTube clips. And yet I still watched. Hey, Ann Curry’s gotta get naked one of these days. That day’s gonna come soon, I can feel it. Wait…no, I was just sitting on the remote.

|GameOn|

Even though Jeff Garcia is married to former Playmate of the Year Carmella DeCesare, everyone has a blast calling him gay, and Tony Kornheiser is no exception.  The money quote in the video is “Garcia, who loves to date hot quarterbacks…” and I think I detected a little bit of jealousy in Kornheiser’s voice.

As for the rest of Monday Night Football, the Panthers steamrolled the Bucs 38-23 using a bruising running game that broke Tampa Bay’s will in the second half.  DeAngelo Williams (186 yards, 2 TDs) and Jonathan Stewart (115, 2 TDs) ran freely around a Bucs defense that had allowed only one rushing touchdown all season entering the game.  Other fantasy studs were Steve Smith (117 yards, 1 TD) and the Bucs’ Antonio Bryant, who had nine receptions for 200 yards and two scores (including a ristupidous one-handed grab – watch after the jump) while sitting on your fantasy bench.

(top video from KSK) Read the rest of this entry »

Capitalizing on three Aaron Rodgers interceptions, the Saints ran away with a Monday Night Football game that went from first-half shootout to second-half execution shooting, winning 51-29 thanks to an offensive onslaught powered by Drew Brees.  Brees completed 20 of his 26 passes for 323 yards and four touchdowns, picking apart the heralded (and wildly overrated) Packers secondary.

But, since it was Monday Night Football and the Packers were playing, the story wasn’t really about Brees and the Saints.  According to Tony Kornheiser, this game was all about Brett Favre.  “Hey Jaws, don’t the Packers HAVE to be wondering about whether they made the right move by trading FAVRE?”  Repeat that sentence for three hours, and you’ll have the gist of last night’s transcript.

I try not to complain about announcers, because anything after the combination of Joe Theismann and Mike Patrick is a gift, but Jesus Harold Christ is Kornheiser horrible at his job.  Just try to sit through MNF without booze.  I dare you.

After the jump: Roman Harper helps Greg Jennings remove his cleats. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know what Tony Kornheiser’s deal is. He’s neither entertaining nor insightful, unless you prefer having every quarterback in front of you compared to Brett Favre, and enjoy Tony doing so with the watering mouth of a Catholic priest parked at the rear entrance of an elementary school. So it seems rather fitting of the network to give us Philip Rivers and the San Diego Chargers…against Brett Favre.

Like tonight’s game, the matchups on MNF have been very good, and as someone pointed out earlier in the week, the idiots in the booth are going to take a lot of credit for the ratings that those matchups deliver. Kornheiser is like the home version of the MAKE SOME NOISE sign that we would see at the game–it has no place in a telecast. Why try to get me excited for something I’m already excited about? Instead of helping dissect the action on the field, Kornheiser seems to compete with it, to constantly remind us that he’s there. Hopefully, by next season, he won’t be.

You can read a live blog of the game here, or come back tomorrow for some date rape jokes that really didn’t go over so well during Rush Week. You’d think sorority girls would have a better sense of humor.