OK, so I missed most of last week's first Monday night game, and didn't have a chance to listen to the new crew and make harsh judgments. After tonight's game, I would venture the following:
- Overall, a vast improvement over the ESPN Sunday night crew. Mike Tirico is light years ahead of Mike Patrick in quality, and Tony Kornheiser, while not adding much in terms of game analysis, benefits from the time-worn "addition through subtraction" analysis - 9 people out of 10 would be an improvement over Paul Maguire, and Kornheiser does much better than that.
- Theissman remains the most overbearing analyst on TV. Just turn it down a notch, Joe; and you could be among the best. But it's not necessary to be brilliant on every play, and it's really not necessary to punctuate your "important" statements by adding timbre and volume to your voice. Frankly, it just makes you look dumb.
- Kornheiser's main role appears to be as foil to Theissman - if Joe makes one of his patented important announcements, Tony's role is to disagree or debunk. That works for me, but after an entire season it may grow tiresome.
So far, they've had great games. Let's see what happens when they start having to call some real stinkers - which is bound to happen in the second half of the season.
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