FanHouse Tony Kornheiser

Jon Gruden is the new Tony Kornheiser. Just about everybody not working for NFL Network is cool with that.

Mr. Tony the columnist and Pardon the Interruption co-host was nothing like Mr. Tony the third wheel in the Monday Night Football booth, and his departure -- whether on his own terms or otherwise -- is a welcome change. Before ESPN named Gruden to replace Kornheiser, NFL Network had similar plans: they wanted Chucky to move into Cris Collinsworth's seat (Cris graduated to Sunday Night Football after John Madden retired) and work alongside Bob Papa on the eight Thursday night games.

Last week, Steelers linebacker and Super Bowl champion James Harrison told the media that he had no interest in being honored, along with his teammates, at the White House. Not because he's a McCain-Palin guy -- Harrison skipped out on the trip in 2006 when George W. Bush was in office -- but because ... well, I have no idea.

"If you want to see the Pittsburgh Steelers, invite us when we don't win the Super Bowl. As far as I'm concerned, he [Obama] would've invited Arizona if they had won," he said.

So, yeah, I'm not following the logic, but I don't think Harrison was trying to make a larger philosophical point. Instead, he used a lot of words to say: "I don't want to go." And had he just stated as much, that would have been that.

Jon Gruden made national headlines yesterday when he replaced Tony Kornheiser on ESPN's Monday Night Football. Kornheiser, of course, "stepped down" (as MDS, Ryan and I noted last night, that may or may not be extremely convenient) from his role in the booth with very little noise aside from the original announcement.

All in all, it was a pretty smooth transition. That is until SI's Peter King dropped a bombshell in his Tuesday morning version of Monday Morning Quarterback, teased via his Twitter account.

The FanHouse Podcast: Because bloggers are much sexier on the phone.

In Episode 23, FanHouse's Michael David Smith joins Will Brinson and Ryan Wilson to talk about Tony Kornheiser's departure from Monday Night Football. Jon Gruden now has the gig, but is it a one-year deal? And is there a chance that should Gruden return to coaching in 2010, Matt Millen is next in line? Good times.

The conversation also touches on Malcolm Gladwell, who thinks the Lions had nothing to lose by featuring the no-huddle during their run to 0-16 last season, as well as the latest on Brett Favre. Naturally.

Tony Kornheiser gets very mad when I sit in his chair, pick up his personalized bobblehead from the studio set and shake the doll. In fact, even when I don't have the privilege of sometimes subbing for him on ESPN's Pardon The Interruption, he seems to dislike me -- maybe because I have a full head of hair or, more likely, because I'm intellectually beneath him.

That's OK. I am grateful anyway.

I thank him because he did the sportswriting profession proud in his three years on Monday Night Football. Kornheiser technically isn't a sportswriter anymore, having escaped the dying newspaper business like many of us, but when he was hired for one of the most high-profile assignments in sports television, he was dismissed by many viewers and critics as a columnist painfully out of his league.

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You're going to love Jon Gruden on Monday Night Football.

Or you might hate him.

That's the nature of the performing business. Beauty is in the eyes and ears of the beholder. Unless you were looking at Tony Kornheiser.

ESPN has announced that former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Oakland Raiders head coach Jon Gruden will replace Tony Kornheiser on the network's Monday Night Football broadcasts.

Unless you're Vinny Cerrato, who appears to have the best job in sports (radio host, teevee personality, part-time executive vice president for an NFL team!), working for Redskins owner Dan Snyder must be an agonizing experience. He's forever overspending for big-name talent, is incapable of letting scouts and coaches do their jobs, and, ultimately, micromanages the team right into the ground. Every year.

So it should come as no surprise that Snyder is very interested in Jay Cutler, even though he currently has Jason Campbell -- the guy the 'Skins traded into the first round to draft in 2005 -- still under contract. I'll admit: Cutler is an upgrade over Campbell, but when considering all the factors -- the cost (two first-rounders, it sounds like), learning a new offense, playing in a new conference, etc. -- it hardly seems worth it.

While we were all busy taking gratuitous perfectly deserving shots at Matt Millen and his eight-year reign of terror in Detroit as he pursues other professional endeavors, the Free Press' Drew Sharp would like to make a point about everyone's preoccupation with the former Lions president:

The great Michael Phelps bong brouhaha may end up telling us more about all of us who comment on it than it tells us about Phelps. Reactions in the media have ranged from those who ask, "Who cares?" to those who insist that Phelps is a disgrace to the Olympic Games, America and himself.