FanHouse Kornheiser Chronicles

Tony Kornheiser announced on his radio show this morning that he has accepted a buyout from the Washington Post, effectively retiring him as a newspaper writer/worker.

Kornheiser has been at the Post since 1979 and for a pair of generations -- ours and our parents -- is probably considered the most important sports journalism voice from the Capitol area. Kornheiser sounded (as transcribed by Dan Steinberg) melancholy about his departure.

"All I ever wanted to be was a newspaper writer," he said, which is likely not something that anyone under the age of 30 will ever say again. "This other stuff is great, but I don't care about it," he continued. "In my mind that's what it says on the headstone, it says 'newspaper guy.' "

But he also said he signed the papers to take the Post's buyout last night, after working here for, I believe, 29 years. He said he still might contract with The Post to do his Talking Points videos and his Page 2 excerpts, and he said some people in the leadership asked him to stay but didn't really insist, and even though he'll keep doing PTI and the radio show and MNF, he said he feared he'd never have the moral high ground again.

Wow. I know that last sentence is not word-for-word from Tony's mouth, but what does that say about his relationship with ESPN? Lacks moral high ground but involves a ton of money? Maybe. If that's the case, and I sense that plugging every ABC/Disney product in sight is not his idea of "moral high ground", then it's kind of sad to think that Kornheiser will eventually be known for that work and not his WaPo writing.

How good is Tony Kornheiser on the radio? So good that the fact that he took a hiatus from his local show could be the downfall of a major radio operation.

Harry Jaffe of the Washingtonian reports that the Washington Post Co. plans to close its radio arm, and Kornheiser leaving was the straw that broke the camel's back:

the only thing that brought throngs of ears to 1500 AM was Tony Kornheiser's morning gab fest about sports, music, or whatever he fancied. Tony left last month for vacation and then Monday Night Football, and Post Radio ratings tanked.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Kornheiser is great on the radio, very good on Pardon the Interruption, and terrible on Monday Night Football. That he persists in taking time off where he's great to spend time where he's terrible is a real shame.

Hat tip: Romenesko.

Joe Theismann was dismissed by ESPN as a Monday Night Football analyst this off-season, and in an interview with Metro Boston News, he spoke at length about his dismissal for the first time. Although Theismann has no ill will toward the man who replaced him, Ron Jaworski, he doesn't sound all that keen on his former booth-mate, Tony Kornheiser:

I'm not happy with what happened. ... Tony is extremely neurotic. ... I believe, 100 percent that you cannot insult the football fan. "Monday Night Football" is about football, and I hope that they continue to deliver that product to the fan. "Monday Night Football" cannot be an extension of "Pardon The Interruption," because the game is too important.

The problem with Kornheiser last year wasn't that he was neurotic, and it wasn't that he turned MNF into PTI. The problem was that none of Kornheiser's humor and insight on PTI translated to the MNF booth. He would show up to the Monday night booth ill-prepared, ignorant of even the most basic facts about the teams, and relying solely on scripted lines for his lame attempts at humor.

Nevertheless, few fans will dispute that Jaworski is an improvement over Theismann. Jaworski is the best in the business at breaking down game tape and explaining the intricacies of quarterback play in a way that the average fan can understand, and the Monday night booth should be better because of his presence.

Yesterday I noted my disappointment that ESPN's new ombudsman, Le Anne Schreiber, has a prior working relationship with Tony Kornheiser -- just like ESPN's previous ombudsman. Via e-mail, Schreiber responded:

Michael,
What can I say? I worked with Tony Kornheiser for three years ending in 1980. As his editor, I appreciated his talent. I also gave him lots of grief. I haven't seen him since. I don't think it will be difficult for me to assess his work objectively. I admit to enjoying PTI. I will have to see how the new lineup works on MNF. As I said in my column, anyone who has been in sports journalism more recently than I would be likely to have significant conflicts of interest, My one 26-year-old overlap happens to be Tony K.
Best,
Le Anne Schreiber

Schreiber sounds reasonable, and I liked her debut column. I hope when she says she'll see how the new lineup works on MNF, she means she'll thoroughly explore what ESPN is doing with its most expensive and most popular property. Replacing Joe Theismann with Ron Jaworski was a great step in the right direction. Now Kornheiser needs to improve.

Tony Kornheiser might be ESPN's highest-profile employee. He's a commentator on Monday Night Football, which is by far the network's most popular live sporting event, and he's the co-host of Pardon the Interruption, which is the most influential of the network's many opinion-oriented chat shows.

Those two shows provide a fascinating contrast. On PTI Kornheiser is great: He's articulate, intelligent, provocative and funny. On MNF he's terrible: He comes into the booth unprepared and ignorant of basic information about the teams, he reacts to live action with scripted lines, and he distracts from the game on the field with frivolous allusions to pop culture and lame attempts at humor.

Fortunately, ESPN has an ombudsman, a person whose job is to provide, in ESPN's own words, "independent examination and analysis of ESPN's media outlets." So, naturally, that ombudsman would be the perfect person to examine and analyze Kornheiser, and try to break down what it is about him that makes him great on one show and terrible on another. Right?

Norby Williamson is the name of the gentleman at ESPN who confirmed that Tony Kornheiser will be returning for another season of Monday Night Football next year, and thus, Norby and I have issues. If I ever meet a man named Norby, and he introduces himself and says, "Hello, I'm Norby--", he will get punched in the mouth before he's finished pronouncing his last name.

That is how much I hate the decision to bring Kornheiser back.

I don't get it, ESPN. You tried it, and it was a miserable, miserable, failure ... why do it again? I understand you want to try something new, and that's fine. But it didn't work. Why seek to punish your audience like this? Hell, if you're going to bring Kornheiser back, why not just take the extra step and pair him with Fran Drescher and Gilbert Gottfried?

If I just said that Kornheiser brought nothing to the table, that would be too high of a compliment. It's not that he didn't bring anything to the table, but he showed up at the table and started stabbing people. He wasn't just bad, he was aggressively bad. It was as if he sought to inflict pain on the audience.

He asked Joe Theismann questions, he sucked up to celebrities, and he whined about his fantasy team (while not actually knowing the definition of a fantasy team). In about 40 total hours of airtime, he said maybe two funny things. The other 38 hours, 59 minutes and 45 seconds were openly irritating. If he was going to get better at this, I think he might have shown maybe one little sign of improvement over 16 weeks of doing it. He didn't.

Those of you who have followed my work here at the FanHouse may think that that means there will be another season of The Kornheiser Chronicles. There won't be. I'm not doing that to myself again, for much the same reasons that I'll never voluntarily ram my face through a microwave door.

Last night was the Week 15 Monday Night Football game, which means that I will be listening to no more than two more Tony Kornheiser-called football games for the rest of my life. I sort of doubt that he'll be back next year, and even if he is, I'm not letting the FanHouse people rope me into doing another season of the Kornheiser Chronicles. I'd sooner volunteer to write weekly updates on the health and working status of John Madden's colon.

Seriously. I'll buy the colonoscopy equipment myself if I have to.

Tony got the broadcast started last night with an opening monologue about how Peyton Manning has never gotten to a Super Bowl, but that he's a really nice guy. At this point, I had to pause the game on the DVR and stop and think about that.

I had never really considered that Peyton Manning hadn't been to the Super Bowl before. No one had never brought that to my attention before, and it completely changed the way I watched the game. I was rooting for this character; this guy, what's his name? Manning? I suddenly found him sympathetic and likable because of this fresh new take.

I took a week off from the Kornheiser Chronicles, and I think that week allowed me to get a new perspective on Tony Kornheiser and the Monday night crew ... and that new perspective shows me that I didn't hate Tony Kornheiser nearly enough. When the game broadcast started, and Kornheiser went into his pre-game monologue ... it felt like the first day back at school, the teacher barking in your ear again, while you're thinking to yourself, "Dammit, here we go with this again."

Early in the game, Rex Grossman had a miscommunication with a receiver that stalled a drive. Mark Bradley ran a straight fly pattern to the endzone, and Grossman threw it like he was expecting a completely different route. I'd have liked to have heard from Joe Theismann on why the pass was incomplete, whose fault it was, and what the play was supposed to look like.

But Kornheiser talked over the play, and he just kept talking right over the replay ... and he was talking about Rex Grossman, but it wasn't anything that had to do with the play, it was something about a psychiatrist and a buffet. No explanation was ever given for anything, all at the expensive of Tony Kornheiser's desire to keep talking without saying anything that he hadn't already said about Rex Grossman in his pre-game monologue. 14 games in, that's an unforgivable mistake.

He still sucks.

It's so tiresome trying to come up with a little intro paragraph every week that kind of recaps Kornheiser's performance for the evening. It sucked, okay? I suppose maybe we should credit him for trying to make himself more a part of the background, but he even fails at that. He even reached what I thought was a low point last night, but we'll get to that at the end of the post. For the most part during the Seattle/Green Bay game, he was like a plant sitting between Tirico and Theismann ... if you've ever had a plant that you wished would just shut the hell up.

Tony's pregame monologue focused on Brett Favre's longevity in the league, and the fact that it rains a lot in Seattle. Awesome storylines, and things I wasn't aware of. Next week, he may mention that Jerome Bettis is from Detroit. Excellent.

Later, the Packers had a 3rd and goal from the 12-yard-line in the first half. They elected to call a running play, which came up woefully short of the endzone. It was a very strange play call, and Mike Tirico commented on it:

Tirico: There's a surprising play call.
Kornheiser: It was a run.

That it was, Tony. That it was.

What struck me about Tony Kornheiser's role on Monday Night Football last night was just how much of a non-factor he has become. The novelty and curiosity have washed away, and any hope that he'll find a comfort zone and and start adding something substantial to the broadcast died months ago. What we're left with is Tony just sitting there, along for the ride like a child sitting in the backseat of his parents' car with not a lot to offer the grown folks. Well, that and a bizarre "conversation" with Jay-Z.

Kornheiser started the evening, as he always does, with a pregame monologue. This week's theme was how many former New York Giants have gotten into the field of broadcasting, which wasn't really high on my list of things I was hoping to see this evening. He did manage to mix in a nice self-deprecating joke, saying, "If Tiki Barber gave word to ESPN right now, he could be in my seat by next week." Funny, and unfortunately accurate.

A couple of confusing moments followed later. Once, when ESPN was going to commercial after an Eli Manning interception, Kornheiser asked incredulously in regard to Manning's poor play, "Where are the coaches?" Well, they're on the sidelines, why do you ask? I don't understand exactly what he wants the coaches to do there. Manning knows how to throw the ball, he knows where to throw the ball, the man is just in a slump right now. Is his problem really that he lacks a coach to tell him, "Hey, play better"?