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Dierdorf Punted from "Monday Night Football"
And so it goes with the once-venerable ABC Monday Night Football broadcast booth, which is enduring its second major personnel change in as many seasons with color guy Dan Dierdorf announcing his departure Thursday.
Dierdorf, a love-'im-or-hate-'im fixture in the post-Howard Cosell MNF broadcast booth for 12 years, is leaving ABC Sports because the network purportedly won't renew his $1.75 million-a-year contract. He'll work his last game for ABC Sunday, calling the NFL's Hawaiin all-star game, the Pro Bowl.
The NFL Hall-of-Famer (he was an offensive lineman for the Cardinals back in the days when they were the ones stinking up St. Louis instead of the Rams) struggled all season to mesh with also-very-opinionated booth newbie Boomer Esiason. And with ratings for the sports program way down this year, many sports pundits were figuring that Dierdorf might not be back for the 1999-2000 season.
Still, the parting seemed amicable, with Dierdorf thanking ABC via a statement for "12 wonderful years" and dishing out compliments to his soon-to-be-former colleagues Al Michaels ("the best in the business") and Esiason (he "is going to be a real star").
Meanwhile, ABC's executive VP Brian McAndrews said of Dierdorf: "He is a very talented broadcaster, who earned the respect, admiration and friendship of everyone with whom he worked at ABC Sports. We wish him luck in his future endeavors."
As for what everyone will do now, probably nothing...for now.
After breaking up the Michaels-Dierdorf-Frank Gifford trio last year--one that had been in place for 11 years--by bumping Mr. Kathie Lee to the pregame show, ABC had tried to get Fox's John Madden to play for them on Monday nights. But the game's preeminent color commentator chose to stay with Fox, and is now locked in to a long-term deal.
There is talk that ABC might give the nod to retired Green Bay Packers receiver Sterling Sharpe, who's been making a name at sister network ESPN over the last few years. But the feeling seems to be that combining the still-learning Sharpe with the still-learning Esiason (he was still playing quarterback in the NFL just two years ago) would not be a good idea during a season in which ABC will host the Super Bowl.
Notwithstanding a big-name acquisition like Madden, and accounting for how much Esiason likes to talk, word on the sidelines is that MNF will just have two announcers working the booth this year--which is how it's usually done for most other football telecasts.
As for the still-very-employable Dierdorf, if he wants to still do pro games, he might have to sit out a season, since ESPN isn't an option (it's owned by Disney, just like ABC) and CBS and Fox reportedly have no openings.
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