THE ATROCITY OF THE MIKE AND MIKE AND MIKE ESPN MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL BROADCAST

I will begin by saying that I did not watch much of the Raiders Broncos football game last night but when I did tune in (somewhere in between Gossip Girl and Weeds) I heard what I thought perhaps was a continuation of the Bar A auditions. The combination of Mike Greenberg, Mike Golic and Mike Ditka was unbearable. Did these guys even rehearse? They talked over each other constantly, they provided little or no insight and basically did not belong in a broadcast booth. I believe the last time ESPN had MNF doubleheader the broadcasters included Dick Vermil and Ron Jaworski, who actually have broadcast football games and know what they are talking about.

To me, with a broadcast team like the 3 Mikes, ESPN was saying a few things:
1. It's the NFL and we know you, the fan will watch anything we throw up there even if it includes completely unseasoned, untrained broadcasters mucking it up throughout the game
2. IT'S MIKE AND MIKE: Everyone loves them. Well, sorry to say but that's not really true. I kind of can't bare listening to them and to just blindly believe that you can throw those guys with no experience into a booth and do football games is disrespectful to the people that actually treat broadcasting as a craft and to the fan who actually expects something more during the game.
3. MIKE DITKA, YOU SO CRAZY: Essentially ESPN was relying on the old trick of let's put someone crazy in the booth and everyone will stick around for them to say something crazy. That worked out tremendously with Dennis Miller.

Ok, ESPN you want to experiment, you wanna do some FUN STUFF, maybe not as fun as Titletown or 50 States in 50 Days, fine. Do something fun. But how about this, how about at the least putting a seasoned play by play guy in the booth to handle the heavy lifting, to take us through the game. Maybe go INSANE because you really want this THREE Mike thing because it's super clever, so go FOUR PERSON BOOTH! Mike and Mike and Mike and even go another Mike and have Mike Tirico doing the play by play on the Madden Cruiser while driving to the game. I'm sure we could get the live feed hooked up in there. It would be INSANE! A RATINGS GRABBER! Maybe Sal Palontonio could do his sideline reports from the highway exits as the Madden Cruiser passes important exits. Sportsnation will be going crazy, Bill Simmons will do a live diary that will mention pop culture AND sports!

Yup, ESPN, just think, you were only one Mike short of taking an atrocious idea and making it an incredibly entertaining train wreck.