NFL does no favors to Monday Night Football

Some of the Baker family football fans, shown here at a college game

Professional football in America has taken a step back as the Monday Night Football broadcast has fallen from favor, probably because of the Thursday Night edition.

NFL officials: This is too much!

Monday Night Football was born 50 years ago and caught on almost immediately as it was widely available on ABC-TV, and was the only professional game to be found on a weeknight.

Keith Jackson, "Dandy" Don Meredith and Howard Cosell started the tradition, which this year features Joe Tessitore doing the play-by-play and former Louisiana State University standout Booger McFarland on color commentary with Lisa Salters on the sideline. I have no quarrel with any of the 2019 talent: McFarland, especially, is well-researched and prepared. They all are trying very hard, but none were nationally-known stars, like their predecessors.

Monday Night Football was broadcast on ABC-TV for 35 years. In 2006 the program moved to the ESPN Network, not available to all Americans. In October the games weren't too interesting, with one exception. On Oct. 7, the Browns hosted the Patriots and lost, 31-3. A week later was an NFC North match-up between the Lions and Packers. The hometown Packers won in controversial fashion (referee decisions) 23-22. But on Oct. 21 the Patriots shut out the New York Jets 33-0, and on Oct. 28 the host Steelers defeated the struggling Miami Dolphins, 27-14.

Thursday Night Football began in 2006 and features well-known talent in the booth. This year it is broadcast on FOX-TV. Joe Buck does the play-by-play, Troy Aikman handles the color commentary and there are two sideline reporters, Erin Andrews and Kristina Pink.

Monday Night Football, long a ratings leader, lags in the NFL rankings: The Monday night broadcast in Week 8 attracted 9.98 million viewers compared to 13.48 million for Thursday Night Football (which featured my favorite team, the Minnesota Vikings) and 18.32 million for the Sunday Night broadcast, as reported by the website sportsmediawatch.com.

It is a mammoth task to set the pro game schedules, according to the website NFL.com. There are 17 weeks in a season. A team of five NFL executives spend months and use hundreds of computer programs in a secure room, to "showcase the league's best teams and talent."

A formula is used to ensure that each team plays one of the other 31 teams, at least once every four years. The quintet examines the schedules spewed forth by the computer programs and takes on the arduous task to pick the best match-ups, the NFL website states.

Back in the day, there was only Monday Night Football during the week. We would have a family dance party timed to coincide when the Hank Williams tune, "All My Rowdy Friends are Here on Monday Night" was sung. That's still in use, but years ago it was performed by Pink (in 2006), and by Faith Hill.

The performance was really cool and there was dancing around the living room in time to the music.

The kids are gone in 2019 and Carrie Underwood headlines the cool event: the pre-show for Sunday Night Football. Underwood presents her take on the Joan Jett song "I Hate Myself for Loving You" with none other than Joan Jett. Jett's song was reworked to "Waiting All Day for Sunday Night."

Monday Night Football falls somewhere between the NBC-TV hoopla on Sunday nights and the Thursday Night Football extravaganza on FOX-TV.

It's just a shame how this has evolved.