Did you catch Tony Kornheiser on the new ESPN Monday Night Football crew? From what I saw of the exhibition game on Monday between Minnesota and Oakland– and I really only wanted to see how former Hog Tarvaris Jackson might look with the Vikings — Kornheiser, host of ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” and a Washington Post sports columnist, was OK compared to former ABC Monday Night Football funny guys/commentators such as Dennis Miller. But overall, he got slammed by the TV critics, including a fair critique by fellow Washington Postie Paul Farhi.
So Kornheiser, showing how thin his skin really is and that he’s far better at giving than geting, fired back at Farhi. Now, columnists all over are chiming in. Mark Potash, who used to toil at the Democrat-Gazette as their high school beat man, takes a moment from his Cubs baseball coverage to add his two cents in the Chicago Sun-Times. (It’s about three notes down in the column).
Kornheiser had some usual funny things to say about his first night on the new MNF on the Post blog.
As for Tarvaris Jackson, amazingly I heard ESPN’s Mike Tirico call him the “future” of the Vikings, and somebody later told me they made comparisons to Atlanta’s quarterback-wunderkind Michael Vick. Michael Vick? TJack? No way. Of course, Hog message boards this week found more to criticize Houston Nutt about, as to why he was unable to get anything out of a guy who is now a pro quarterback, while at the same time playing a guy at quarterback who is now a pro receiver. Jackson played at Arkansas for two years and a redshirt year before transferring to Alabama State for his final two years, where he was an offensive star. I never heard the MNF crew mention that Jackson started his career at Arkansas, only that he was following in the footsteps of former Southwestern Athletic Conference quarterbacks Steve McNair and Doug Williams.