ESPN’s new “Monday Night Football” team of Steve Levy, Brian Griese and Louis Riddick will debut on Sept. 14 when they call the late game between the Tennessee Titans and Denver Broncos. The network officially named the new announcing team Monday.
The three called the late game in last season’s Week 1 doubleheader between Denver and Oakland. They replace the duo of Joe Tessitore and Booger McFarland. While ratings had increased for the Monday night game the past two seasons, the announcing was widely criticized.
Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit will call the early game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Giants. Fowler will already be in New York for the U.S. Open tennis tournament.
ESPN is hoping this booth has a little more staying power. It has had frequent changes since Mike Tirico went to NBC in 2016. Tirico was the play-by-play voice for 10 seasons (2006-15) and teamed with Jon Gruden for the last seven. Sean McDonough took over for Tirico for 2016 and ‘17 and worked with Gruden.
After Gruden left to take over as Raiders coach and McDonough sought to move back to college football, ESPN went with the three-man booth of Tessitore, Jason Witten and McFarland in 2018. Witten struggled as an analyst and decided to return to the playing field last year.
