Gruden will never be “that guy” until he makes up his mind that he will not ever coach again.
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This is likely why CBS keeps Cowher in the studio – he’s a threat to jump any given year, so why groom him in the booth and have a PBP partner spend time working with him if he may go back to coaching? Gruden can sign all the ESPN contracts/extensions he wants, but if they always include a coaching escape, then he’s not committed to the booth.

Second, the combination of a professional broadcaster with journalism training and experience with a former coach and/or player with technical insight is better than any other combination.

Third, Mike Tirico is a nice guy, but too bland, and offers little in the way of journalistic insight.

Fourth, Jon Gruden is enthusiastic, but if you listen carefully, offers little technical insight.

Finally, although I don’t think this will be the best available, I really don’t listen much to mediocre announcers when I watch a football game anyway. Rather, I listen only where one or both of the announcers meet the above criteria.

I always thought that was the plan when they brought Gruden on.

There is a reason why they have people making these decisions for who to put in the booth and announce games and not the fans. If it was up to the fans who announced the games, any company would lose instant credibility and it would completely destroy the brand in which they are going for.

Hey guy, when your job is public relations and the public doesn’t exactly like you very much, and there are tons of retired ex-NFL employees, it doesn’t really matter what management thinks. It’s a public relations job.

50/50 doesn’t work for me either. If 50% of us don’t like him and 50% do, theres plenty of other people that can do better than a so-so performance in their public relations job, considering public relations requires success to typically keep your job, not just ‘mediocrity’ because guess what? We all see the mediocrity, this isn’t us spying inside a business and scrutinizing an employee, this is us being talked to and half of us not liking it so how hard is it to replace him with any of the other thousands of people lined up for the job, if that one doesn’t work out so what ESPN just got into the business of MNF and they still suck at is so we’ll give them plenty of credit and time.

There is no such thing as an excuse for a business. Especially when it comes to public relations.

As anyone in the business about Tirico and they will tell you he is one of the best and that Gruden is doing a great job.

Broadcast the game, then zip it

If you want a guy with that great voice, you have to hire an older broadcaster, and they only hire young guys these days unfortunately.

He’s just the worst among those who have been allowed to do it.

So, it is possible (slightly) that there MIGHT be someone worse than him who was just never given the opportunity.