ESPN’s Sean McDonough is ‘Fine’ with Losing ‘Monday Night Football’ Gig

ESPN’s problems with their “Monday Night Football” are well-documented at this point.

There’s perhaps no one who is more familiar with them than broadcaster Sean McDonough, who spent the last two years in the booth next to Jon Gruden as “MNF”’s play-by-play man.

Those issues are a big reason why McDonough, who was relieved of his position earlier this month, said he was “totally fine” with no longer serving as the voice of “MNF” and was happy the network had re-assigned him to calling college football games.

“As much as it was a great honor to be the voice of ‘Monday Night Football,’ it wasn’t a tremendous amount of fun the last two years,” McDonough told Boston radio station WEEI. “When I took my ego out of it, when the conversation about a reboot of ‘MNF’ came up, when I took the ego part of it out and rationalized it, I really could be fine with not being the voice of ‘MNF,’ then it became easy. I love college football. For me, it’s more fun, and that’s a personal taste.

McDonough, who didn’t hold back criticism of the on-field product during “MNF” broadcasts and would sometimes critique the officiating of the NFL’s referees as well, also said the slate of games ESPN received was a problem.

“If you go back and look at the schedule, generally we got one of the worst NFL games each week,” he said. “You’re trying to make something sound interesting and exciting that isn’t.”