
Ten months after ESPN took the wraps off its all-new “Monday Night Football” broadcast team, the network finds itself in need of another reboot. Color commentator Jason Witten on Thursday announced he’ll be rejoining the Dallas Cowboys for what will be his sixteenth season with the team, leaving a tight end-sized hole in ESPN’s booth.
Dallas will pay the 11-time Pro Bowler a reported $3.5 million to wear the No. 82 jersey for another season, or about $1 million less than he was making as an ESPN employee. And while 36-year-old Witten’s decision to come out of retirement means he’ll be subjecting his none-too-youthful body to the chamber of horrors that is the NFL schedule, in choosing to play football again, he’ll be free of the constant criticism that came with his broadcasting gig.
Unlike fellow Cowboy Tony Romo, who in just two years in the CBS booth has elevated himself to some sort of omniscient demigod, Witten struggled mightily during his brief “Monday Night Football” tenure. Among his malapropisms was saying that Aaron Rodgers “pulled a rabbit out of his head.”
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