An Open Letter to Tony Kornheiser

Dear Tony,
I'm writing to you today with a heavy heart. I remember when you had a little more hair, a little less fat, and were pioneering the new genre of "In Your Face Sports Shows" with Michael Wilbon. It was January of 2002- I had just returned from a semester abroad in London, and my beloved New England Patriots were in the midst of an incredible run at their first Superbowl victory. Being outside the country for the entire regular season, I was reliant on Boston Globe and ESPN.COM game recaps, and some guy named Bill Simmons to add a little of the fan's perspective of what was going on in Drew Bledsoe's absence. Flipping through the channels after class, I stumbled upon something truly revelatory: 2 diehard sports fans, both accomplished reporters and columnists for the Washington Post, and both good friends, having realistic conversations and debates over the day's biggest stories. Entertaining, knowledgeable, and likable, Pardon the Interruption became must-see-tv for any sports fan.
Fast-forward to present day Monday Night Football: you are an annoying blowhard in the booth. As the member of the broadcast team supposed to represent the voice of the fan, you all too often see the game through your columnist's eyes. Instead of taking more of an opportunity to elicit knowledge from Jaws on things that fans wonder aloud, such as what exactly constitutes illegal formations on the O-line, or the X's-and-O's reason why a particular defensive scheme is so successful, we are subjected to sophomoric punch lines and pop culture references that fall flat time and time again.
The opening monologue about how the game weaves itself into the fabric of American society and the melodramatic halftime soliloquy on how "the whole world's changed but nothing's changed because the score is different than the experts predicted" is the worst form of hype. Give me a break. And no one cares who's on your fantasy football team, unless they are in your league and are playing you that week. They are the only people who care.
Tony, I had to get this off my chest. I still like you, I still watch PTI everyday, and enjoy your work there immensely, but I can't stomach you in the booth. I just can't. Now, this is not to say that you can't get better, or that you're always terrible on MNF, it's just that more often than not, I find myself distracted by some trivial nonsense you puked up to inject humor into the game, or some tangential reach into the deep recesses of the human soul, when sometimes, a football game is just a game.
And for the record, Brett Favre is a fucking assclown, and always has been.

Sincerely,
Judge Elihu Smails


Update 10/22/08:
Fanhouse has been tracking Kornheiser's idiocy on MNF and came out with an interesting stat: he mentioned Tom Brady's name 22 times, and Matt Cassel's name 9 times. In their words:
"Before the opening kickoff the score was already 5-1 in favor of Brady. On a night where Cassel completed 75% of his passes and threw three touchdowns, helping lead the Patriots to a 41-point performance on offense, Kornheiser, one of the guys announcing the game, referenced him by name nine times. He referenced a guy not playing 22 times. That's incredible, and completely predictable."
Imagine if the Brady-less Pats played the Favre-less Packers on MNF this year. The guy is fucking terrible and should be fired ASAP.