Despite the fact that ESPN’s various attempts to lure in new talent to the Monday Night Football booth have fallen short this offseason, the Worldwide Leader is reportedly slated to replace the pairing on its signature NFL broadcast. According to Richard Deitsch of The Athletic, ESPN has decided to remove play-by-play man Joe Tessitore and analyst Booger McFarland from the booth, although both will keep roles with the company.
As for who will replace them, that is still unclear, but the individuals will be folks currently with ESPN.
ESPN is going to have a new Monday Night Football booth. Joe Tessitore and Booger McFarland will not return, via sources. The successors will be internal. No decision has been made yet. Both Tessitore and McFarland will remain in prominent roles at ESPN.
— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) May 9, 2020
Tessitore, who has received praise over the years due to his work on ESPN’s broadcasts of college football and boxing, replaced Sean McDonough in 2018 following McDonough’s decision to return to calling college games. McFarland, meanwhile, joined the broadcast that same year in an analyst spot on the sidelines, then moved to the booth full-time last year when Jason Witten opted to un-retire from the NFL and rejoin the Dallas Cowboys.
While ESPN’s desire to replace them has been out in the open for some time, the attempts to bring talent into the fold has fallen through on several occasions this offseason: Tony Romo opted to stay with CBS over agreeing to terms with ESPN, Peyton Manning reportedly opted against doing Monday Night Football games, and Drew Brees decided to go to NBC Sports whenever his NFL career ends. In reporting on the Brees news a few weeks back, Andrew Marchand of the New York Post mentioned that ESPN had a handful of names on its potential list of replacements for both Tessitore and McFarland:
As for ESPN, its search to replace Joe Tessitore and Booger McFarland on “Monday Night Football” continues. Internally, Steve Levy is considered a strong candidate for the play-by-play position, though ESPN does have others to choose from in Adam Amin, Dave Pasch and Bob Wischusen.
On the analyst side, ESPN will internally consider Dan Orlovsky, Louis Riddick and Brian Griese, while looking outside at NFL Network/Westwood One’s Kurt Warner and CBS/NFL Network’s Nate Burleson, according to sources.
Should this hold and Deitsch’s reporting come true, Warner and Burleson would be out of the picture, as would Amin, who left ESPN this week to join Fox Sports. As for what’s next for both Tessitore (who will presumably keep doing boxing) and McFarland, hopefully both return to college football — Tessitore’s style works extremely well alongside the absurdity of the sport, while McFarland previously worked as an SEC Network studio analyst prior to his move to Monday nights.