Monday Night Tony

Tony Kornheiser picked up what had to be a dream gig. Cohost of Monday Night Football. OK, so it's not the original MNF. That disappeared when ABC, which had hosted MNF since its inception, decided Sunday night was better, and swapped it with ESPN, which had been doing Sunday Night Football (To be fair, ABC owns ESPN).

Tony even survived the purge. Joe Theismann (who I can't stand as an announcer) was his co-host and had been doing football for ESPN for quite a while. But most people observed that Theismann and Kornheiser didn't get along. Tony would say, graciously, on his show that the two got along just fine. But Kornheiser felt constrained. In order to be nice to his buddy, he held back on critical words.

They eventually replaced Theismann with Ron Jaworski. Former Philadelphia Eagles QB, Jaworski (called "Jaws") is gregarious, gets along well with Tony, and studies the game fastidiously. He used to cohost a show where they went over game tape and break stuff down like coaches do. The kind of stuff that fanboys love. Jaws is not only a geek ( of a sports variety), he positively effervesces. And Tony is suitably deferential when it comes to Jaws's expertise. And Jaws is so active and non-egotistical, that Tony feels relaxed enough to be himself.

But here's the rub.

Tony's a guy made for radio. Every time Tony is on camera, he looks constipated. He's uncomfortable. OK, he's not exactly like Mary Carillo who automatically smiles when she's listening, almost cloyingly sweet (almost, but not quite).

Which is too bad because Tony can be brilliant on radio.

But anytime Tony has to sit down and wait for other people to speak, he looks like deer in headlight. Good thing this doesn't happen too much.