Well regardless of whether matchups have been good over the past few years, I still found myself tuning into MNF every week. It was an institution, and will be sorely missed on ABC. I just don't think it'll be the same on ESPN, but I will prob still watch, perhaps. As for the changes, I'm not sure what to expect, but apparently ESPN will showcase the new MNF look I think during the Super Bowl or the playoffs, so look for that. And Al Micheals will still be there, whether you like that or not. And actually, the games this year haven't been too bad...regardless of whether it was a marquee matchup, there have been some close games (Cowboys v Eagles come to mind). Oh and the Texans were on MNF football...I believe their first preseason game was on MNF (if you wanna count that).
MNF isn't going away, it will just be on ESPN instead of ABC next year. But will still be on Monday nights....
This is a nice column about Monday Night Football, and a night in 1978 that was magical for an Oilers fan... Dec. 27, 2005 Tyler Rose's run on MNF set standard By JOHN P. LOPEZ Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Earl Campbell was hunched over in the Oilers' huddle, so much in a blurry haze from 27 carries and all the vicious hits taken and delivered that he did not hear the call. Campbell broke the huddle and looked at his fullback, Tim Wilson, who saw the groggy look in Campbell's eyes. "Everybody was just pounding me," Campbell said Monday from his home in Austin. "Tim Wilson said, 'It's on two. Follow me. We're going right.' " Wilson made the block and Campbell scorched the Miami Dolphins with the clinching 79-yard run on that November night in 1978. The 35-30 win has long been known as the game that launched the Luv Ya Blue era and sent Campbell's career into another dimension. "That run separated me from the boys, I still think," Campbell said. "That set me into the (level) of the Jim Browns, the Gale Sayerses, guys like that. I started being mentioned with the greatest backs in history." On any given Sunday, the play would have been stellar and Campbell's performance noteworthy. Without it, Campbell still would have been a Hall of Fame back. But it wasn't what Campbell did at the Astrodome that made it a defining moment, and it wasn't only Campbell whose football life was epitomized by that performance. It wasn't any given Sunday. It was Monday night. And for all the great players and great games remembered as Monday Night Football ends its association with ABC and switches to ESPN next year, Campbell's four-touchdown night defined the show more than anything else. In Campbell, ABC announcer Howard Cosell saw the personification of everything beautiful about sports. Campbell was raw and rugged. His was a small-town story worth telling. And in Cosell, Campbell had a fan in the eloquent storyteller around whom the nation gathered every Monday night, not sure if the bombastic one would reveal a new hero or tear an old one apart. It was never better MNF had Bo Jackson and Joe Washington. It had Joe Montana and John Elway. It had L.T. and The Juice. But at the height of Monday Night Football's popularity, when the battered and weary Campbell swept to the right, following Wilson into the hole, cutting outside and blasting past Miami Dolphins tacklers for the long touchdown, you saw MNF at its best. As Campbell slowly trudged off the field, Cosell exalted the 199-yard performance as only he could, with that slow, serious tone that convinced millions: This is special. Monday Night Football has always been good, but it never got better than it was on Nov. 20, 1978. It was the stage, the time and the man behind the microphone interpreting Campbell's football dance that made it so. Somehow the pompous New York lawyer and bruising Texan drew on each other's greatness. Monday Night Football's ratings were booming. Houston was in the midst of an oil boom. Cosell was Monday Night Football. And everything that Houston was in 1978 — unafraid, raw, daring to be great — so, too, was Campbell. Cosell told co-producer Barry Warner in the 1991 television documentary The Tyler Rose: "That was the best game we ever had on Monday Night Football. Earl Campbell showed that night that he was one of the great running backs of the National Football League of all time. He showed the whole world that no single tackler can bring him down. It was pure football." Cosell and Campbell became friends, and for years later when they would meet, Cosell would belt out the Oilers' anthem, singing "Hou-ston Oil-ers! Hou-ston Oil-ers No. 1!" "I always thanked Howard for what he did for me," Campbell said. "He brought the attention of the whole country to me." Cosell left partners Frank Gifford and Don Meredith, with whom he shared an unparalleled on-air rapport, and quit Monday Night Football in 1983. Campbell retired from the game two years later. In the years since, an assortment of broadcasters have filled Cosell's shoes, some more adequately than others. There have been great games and great moments. The instant-information age bit into ratings and took the luster off halftime highlights like those Cosell announced with drama and vigor. Cable television and the saturation of the NFL on the air took away the uniqueness of MNF. "There was nothing like that game," Campbell said. "There was nothing like Monday Night Football. Your mama's watching, your sister, everybody was watching. If you played good, everybody knew." On one night, it was never better. It all came together perfectly. Perfect as a rose. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/lopez/3549121.html
Ahh, MacGuyver followed by Monday Night Football...best prime time lineup EVER! Does anybody remember "You Make The Call" presented by IBM? They would show a hard-to-call play and you had to decide what the right call is. Great times, great times...The original MNF theme song is also one of my favorite instrumental songs of all time. Another show I'll miss a lot, but is not getting as much recognition, is NFL Prime Time. NBC got exclusive rights to broadcast the highlights of the Sunday afternoon games when it got the contract to broadcast the sunday night games.
I wondered why prime time was going away. that also had a farewell show, even though I guess they haven't done their last show. you make the call was pretty good. better than the Aflack trivia on college games.
That was my favorite part as a kid. Anything that gets Chris Berman away from the camera is good news, IMO. He's a egomaniac who thinks he's bigger than the sports he covers.
