Mr. Tony on MNF won't stink

Relax Mr. Tony. You’ll do just fine.

We’re all cheering for you. Well, most of us anyway. There’s always that group of insecure snots who want to see everyone else fail.

In case you readers haven’t heard, Monday Night Football announced Wednesday that Tony Kornheiser will be the third guy in the booth when the program moves to ESPN this fall after 36 years on ABC.

(Where have you been if you don’t know this by now? Everyone is talking about it. Well, I didn’t hear Colin Cowherd mention it on his show Wednesday, but maybe I just missed it. By the way, where was Colin the past two days?)

Kornheiser, who, along with fellow Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon, is co-host of the uber-popular “Pardon the Interruption” on ESPN, talked candidly Wednesday on his Washington D.C.-based radio show about joining the new Monday Night crew of Mike Tirico and Joe Theismann.

Listening to him speak, you’d think the whole thing is doomed from the beginning. “I really don’t think I’m the right person for the job,” Kornheiser said.

In the Post Thursday, Kornheiser said, “I've never done this. It seems daunting. I could be a disaster.”

Asked on Dan Patrick’s radio show later that day if the over/under on his new gig were to be set at two years, which would he pick, Kornheiser quickly responded “under, definitely under two years.”

Perhaps the biggest challenge for Kornheiser will be rearranging his sleeping hours and overcoming his adversity to flying. He said Wednesday that he “lives like a barn animal,” going to bed at 9:15 p.m. and getting up around 5 a.m. Also, he said he has never stayed up late enough to watch an entire Monday Night Football game.

Mr. Tony, maybe the ESPN folks will let you take naps periodically throughout the broadcast. I’m sure your guy Thiesmann would have no trouble filling the void and ensuring there’s no dead air.

As far as the travel arrangements for hopping about the country without hopping on a plane, ESPN executive vice president John Skipper said Kornheiser would be supplied with a bus, one that will be “bigger than (John) Madden’s bus,” Skipper said.

(There’s no conformation to the rumor that Kornheiser has petitioned the NFL to schedule all of the MNF games at the Redskins’ FedEx Field for the 2006 season.)

Radio talk show host and callers seem mixed about whether Kornheiser’s addition to MNF will be a success. Many are recalling the failed MNF experiment that brought comedian Dennis Miller into the booth a few years back. Kornheiser is just the third non-football player to work MNF games from the booth, joining Miller and Howard Cosell.

“They just don’t give these jobs to sports writers,” Kornheiser said.

That’s right. They usually don’t, but non athletes should be given more chances for this kind of job. It’s great to hear the ex-players share their knowledge and insight about what’s happening on the field. At the same time, we need regular guys, who simply love sports, sharing with us their regular guy perspective.

So, come on Mr. Tony. Show a little more faith in yourself. You’re currently working about 72 jobs as it is. So if you do fail, and I tend to think you won’t, it’s not like you’ll be filling out applications to go work at Wal-Mart.