Are you ready for some football?
Several networks hope your answer is “yes,” since at this time of year, prime-time telecasts of preseason games are meant to get viewers ready for the regular slate of NFL contests. No broadcast network has more invested in that than ABC, whose “Monday Night Football” franchise is starting its 32nd season. This Monday, its staff will be in Green Bay, Wis., for a match-up between the Packers and the Denver Broncos (7 p.m.). That includes the current trio in the booth, beginning their second year together: sportscasting veteran Al Michaels, NFL Hall of Fame member Dan Fouts, and comedian (and devout football fan) Dennis Miller.
With sideline reporters Eric Dickerson and Melissa Stark also returning, the on-camera team is intact, though there’s a behind-the-scenes change worth noting. Don Ohlmeyer — who caused many eyebrows to raise last year over his hiring of Miller — has left the job of executive producer, and Fred Gaudelli has moved over from ESPN (after 19 years there) to fill that position.
“When I took the job,” Gaudelli says, “the explicit direction (given to me) was to keep moving in the same direction. Last year was a bold experiment that worked pretty much across the board. What we want to do now is to really cultivate that, especially in the booth, making that more seamless and conversational and entertaining. Technically, we may have a couple of new things that will definitely add to the telecast, but the direction will be the same. It’s just going to be a lot better.”
Miller agrees, admitting that “at the beginning of (last) season, I was scared silly because I didn’t know how hard it was going to be. At the end of the season, I was scared silly because I knew how hard it was. I didn’t tell anybody last year that I had been to only one football game in my life, when I was seven years old. I figured I’d better not drop that nugget on ABC. Cut to me in Canton (the Ohio city where the preseason Hall of Fame Game is played), standing next to Al and thinking, ‘I’m usually in my undies on the couch with a clicker at this time.’ “
Michaels has had his share of “Monday Night Football” experiences over his 15 years with the program, and he allows that the formation of the present broadcast team was “the great experiment, or the great adventure, so we went in with a sense of not knowing how it was going to play out. I felt it played out extremely well. There’s always going to be a little bit of difficulty when you blend new voices together — people are going to step on each other — but I thought there was very little of that. The games themselves were probably the best in the history of ‘Monday Night Football,’ so all things considered, I would call it a major success.”
So would former San Diego Chargers player Fouts, who can often gauge the reception to Miller from talking to other athletes before the games: “Players will come up to me and say, `Where is he?’ I’ll say, ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘Where’s Dennis?’ ‘Well, he’s over there.’ ‘Can I meet him?’ It happens almost every Monday night before a game, even with an assistant coach sometimes, and I think that’s great.” Adds Miller, “And then they bully me for my lunch money.”
