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Joe Tessitore calls his new gig at ESPN a ”legacy job.”

Jason Witten notes he’s joining ”another iconic franchise.”

Booger McFarland says it’s ”the pinnacle of what we do.”

They are the three new voices who will work ESPN’s Monday night games this season.

Tessitore has been one of the network’s top announcers for 16 years on boxing Tramon Williams Jersey , college football and basketball, including calling the College Football Playoff semifinals the past two years. It will be his first NFL assignment.

”I am very conscious of that lineage,” says Tessitore, who at 46 is the oldest member of what he calls ”a young, vibrant crew.”

”When I got the call that I would be doing this, my first reaction was remembering when I was a kid watching Frank Gifford, Dandy Don (Meredith) and Howard Cosell. Everybody back then watched `Monday Night Football’ and `Wide World of Sports’ and Howard Cosell doing boxing. I did a Cosell imitation that had my grandfather, who didn’t speak English, laughing his tail off.”

Witten, one of the sport’s finest tight ends for 15 seasons and a likely Hall of Famer, retired from the Dallas Cowboys earlier this month to move into the booth.

Tessitore believes Witten will be a natural as he and McFarland replace Jon Gruden as analysts. Gruden Dalvin Cook Jersey , of course, is back coaching in the league with Oakland.

”We had a lot of candidates, and at the end of the audition process we all were saying, `This is very obvious,”’ Tessitore says of Witten.

”He has such an upside that this is a guy who could be the next generation’s face and voice of the NFL. He’s smart, respected, even beloved by coaches, and has a tremendously high football IQ. Jason has a little of all the traits and characteristics of the great ones. Most importantly, he is wholly authentic.”

Witten will be in the broadcast booth with Tessitore. McFarland, who won two Super Bowls as a player and has been an analyst for ESPN and SEC Network for four years, will be the first field-level analyst for ”Monday Night Football.”’

The idea is for the effervescent McFarland to give a viewpoint from near the trenches – exactly where he spent nine pro seasons as a defensive lineman.

McFarland’s wit and enthusiasm will be apparent from the outset of the broadcasts; ESPN’s first telecast will be Thursday night Nate Solder Jersey , Aug. 16 with the Jets at the Redskins in the preseason.

”I am going to use a strange word to describe Booger as an announcer: nimble,” Tessitore says. ”He’s dynamic, a huge personality and presence. You can’t have a cookie-cutter type of analyst and Booger is far from that – he’s a guy who you can turn on the red light for the broadcast and he’s ready to go.”

Tessitore replaces Sean McDonough, who returns to doing college football.

Lisa Salters is the only holdover, returning for her seventh season as the sideline reporter.

Tessitore recognizes the platform he and his new sidekicks will have. Their first regular-season game will be the nightcap of the opening Monday night doubleheader, the Rams at the Raiders (and Gruden).

”The college game lends itself to every game being its own story, the pageantry and the storytelling attached to it,” Tessitore says. ”In the NFL, each game is a continuation of a well-told narrative that everyone is following.

”It’s like this is our weekly story, part of a book we’ve all been continuously reading, and each week we’re on to the next chapter.”

He also realizes that simply calling a game for three hours or longer isn’t what his new job should be about. There’s much more to it.

”There’s a vision of when we land in town we begin to create content for fans who can go to the app and hear what we have to say about the upcoming games or what’s happening in the league Michael Hoomanawanui Jersey ,” he says. ”We also want to have more content made available pre-game and postgame.

”I’ve become so football-obsessed, it has become ridiculous.”

—

Sunday’s awkward and standoffish press conference from Eagles coach Doug Pederson became, on Monday, a much more emotionally intelligent disclosure by Pederson to reporters that Nick Foles will start at quarterback on Thursday. In making the announcement, Pederson said he’ll answer questions about the decision on Tuesday.

On Monday, offensive coordinator Mike Groh faced the media for a Q&A session, on the heels of the announcement that Foles will play. Among other things, Groh was asked to share the advice he gave to Foles.

“Just be Nick,” Groh said. “He did a great job of distributing the football throughout the course of the playoffs and getting rid of the football and not holding the ball and putting the ball in our playmakers’ hands and letting those guys do what they do best. He doesn’t have to do anything extraordinary. He just has to continue to play like he did before and be the same guy.”

That may be easier said than done. Especially since Foles has been splitting first-team reps with Wentz.

“We feel comfortable with the reps he’s gotten and his preparation this week,” Groh nevertheless said. “He’ll be ready to go.”

Groh also said that the challenge of creating a game plan and calling plays doesn’t change much if at all between Wentz and Foles.

“This is the Eagles system, and I think that both guys have very similar skill sets Paul Krause Jersey ,” Groh said. “They both can perform the plays that we want to get called. We got to get guys in the right spots to do what they do best, but I don’t think it impacts it much at all.”

If that were the case, Pederson wouldn’t have been so prickly about naming a starter. Most realize that, indeed, the offenses are very different under Wentz and Foles.

Last year, the Eagles used the playoff bye to carefully concoct a game plan that got the most out of Foles’ skills and that stayed away from his flaws. And it all fell together perfectly, from a close win over the Falcons to a handful of key plays that became a blowout over the Vikings to a harebrained decision to bench Malcolm Butler that became just enough points to win a championship against the Patriots.

So the question becomes whether the wins were a product of Nick being Nick, or whether it was more like a Slumdog Millionaire-style confluence of circumstances that could never be replicated again. Whether it can be replicated will be determined on Thursday night.

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