Jaworski leaving Monday Night Football to take expanded NFL role at ESPN

Ron Jaworski

ESPN announced today that Ron Jaworski has signed a five-year extension with the network for a new, expanded NFL analyst role that includes appearances on several of the network's football platforms and shows throughout the year.

With Jaworski's departure from the booth, Monday Night Football will have a two-person commentator team for the first time during the 2012 NFL season with Mike Tirico and analyst Jon Gruden.

Jaworski, a former quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, has covered the league from virtually every angle since joining ESPN in 1990, including sideline reporter, game-site reporter, host, and both studio and game analyst. He served as a MNF analyst the past five seasons.

“I am grateful for having the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of working on Monday Night Football the past five seasons with Mike Tirico, Jon Gruden and so many other talented people behind the scenes who make the show so great, and I look forward to bringing my passion and knowledge of the game to more fans in more places than ever before on any and all football topics,” said Jaworski.

“I thank Ron for the great contributions he has made to Monday Night Football and look forward to the many ways he will enhance our studio presentation from our NFL-branded shows to SportsCenter,” said ESPN President John Skipper. “With two strong analysts in Ron and Jon, these moves will better utilize their strengths and benefit our entire NFL presentation.”

With Jaworski’s new role, Tirico and Gruden will combine to give ESPN one of the top duos in NFL broadcasting. The Tirico-Gruden pairing marks just the sixth time in MNF’s 42-year history (which began on ABC in 1970) that sports television’s signature series will feature a two-person commentator team. In addition, this will be the first time in 15 years that ESPN has used a two-person lead team on its NFL game coverage. The last was Mike Patrick and Joe Theismann who called Sunday Night Football games together from 1988-1997.

Information for this story was provided by ESPN.