Q&A with Jaws
By Trent Modglin ([email protected])
March 29, 2007
Ron Jaworski is on cloud nine these days, and it’s kind of hard to blame him. He’s always animated when talking football, but now, as the new addition to the “Monday Night Football” booth, he’s got a little extra energy in his voice. Reason being, he has reached the pinnacle of the business, and he has done so through hard work. The former Eagles quarterback and longtime ESPN studio analyst replaces Joe Theismann alongside Mike Tirico and Tony Kornheiser, and he sounds like a kid on Christmas morning.
Jaworski sat down to talk about his move to the coveted "MNF" booth, trying to lower the boom on someone after an interception and just what it is about Vince Young that’s so appealing.
Q: Can you sit back and begin to put this week into perspective at all?
A: You know, it’s been five weeks since they offered me the job to be the analyst on “Monday Night Football,” and I still don’t think it’s set in. I believe I’m still in a little bit of shock. It’s obviously a job that everyone would covet, and it’s the signature of ESPN now. Growing up, playing ball and then going to Youngstown State and watching the first “Monday Night Football” game, Cleveland and the Giants, in my college dorm room, and realizing now that I’ll be a part of that broadcast team, it’s mind-boggling.
Q: I guess it depends what sport you gravitate toward most, but I would assume this is considered the top perch for sports broadcasters, isn’t it?
A: Oh, no question about it. It’s a job that everyone covets and aspires to have, and I think I’m very fortunate to have this opportunity. I’ve worked diligently for 17 years now at every job that ESPN has assigned me to, and I think that has prepared me for this opportunity. I’m looking forward to working with Mike and Tony in the booth and Suzy and Michelle on the sideline. I know them all very well and have worked with them all in the past, and I know the passion and enthusiasm is there. … I think a good team is in place, and I think this thing is going to take off and I’m really excited to be part of the bunch.
Q: You’ve done a lot of different things with ESPN, but most of it has been as a studio analyst. Have you sought out advice from anyone in the booth since the hiring?
A: Throughout my broadcast career, I’ve always sought advice from people that have been in the profession. When I see Phil Simms or Troy Aikman, I would ask those guys about things. Just in passing, the conversation might be about what they like, what they don’t like, the trends they see, what they would like to see from an analyst. I’ve always had those conversations. I was actually with Dan Dierdorf yesterday, and Dan was actually in the booth doing what I’m going to be doing. He gave me some excellent observations. I intend to get to Dan Fouts and Boomer Esiason in order to talk to them about their experiences and see what advice they can give me. Before I do our first practice game and then preseason games, I will have spoken to as many people that have been involved in “Monday Night Football” as possible to get a good cross-section of how people feel about it and how they approach doing a game.
Q: One of the big decisions in all of football last year was Tony Kornheiser’s hiring. What did you think about his first year and what his personality brings to the booth?
A: The first thing you have to realize is “Monday Night Football” is kind of a hybrid. I know this because I’ve been watching it for 38 years or whatever it’s been on. I know it’s not strictly your football X’s and O’s. There’s a lot that goes into it. It’s got a tremendous built-in audience. It’s about entertainment, it’s about marketing, it’s about promoting. I already understand that part going in just from my own personal experience watching it. So I’m not going in with my eyes closed saying we’re just going to do X’s and O’s and talk football. I understand that. And Tony does bring a unique perspective. He’s a bright, brilliant guy. I’ve worked with him for probably close to a decade now on a number of ESPN projects, “Pardon the Interruption,” radio shows, TV shows, and I’m excited about doing more. I think Tony will make me better. His knowledge and understanding of the big picture will certainly help me. And Mike Tirico and I worked together for 10 years on the “Monday NFL Countdown” show. If I’ve had success in this business, a large portion can be attributed to Mike Tirico. He taught me the television business when I first got involved. I knew football. He taught me television.
Q: I know you’re a big film watcher, but now with only two teams per week to really concentrate on, do you anticipate holing yourself up in front of the TV as much?
A: I would never forget what got me to this position right here, and it’s my knowledge of the game and the X’s and O’s of the game. Again, I don’t want to make people think I’m not going to have any fun doing this because I’m going to have a ball, and it’s not going to be this in-depth X’s and O’s deal. I’m going to tell people why a play worked, why it didn’t work, why a team’s successful or unsuccessful, those sort of things, in my opinion, but I’m not going to bore them with some sophisticated X’s and O’s that they wouldn’t understand. But I do love the X’s and O’s, because what it does is make coaches much more open to me to talk about the game. When I call coaches now, it could be on a Tuesday or Wednesday when they’re deeply engrossed in game-planning, and they’ll take my call because they love talking football. Other media guys call coaches to talk about players, or their off-the-field problems or a contract or something controversial. But I just want to talk about the game. I can put the phone down and come back in 10 minutes and they’re still talking.
Q: Can it work both ways, where maybe the coach goes to get a sandwich and comes back 10 minutes later and you’re still talking?
A: (Laughs) Probably. It works both ways.
Q: Do you have a favorite memory from “Monday Night Football,” either as a player or just watching it as a fan or analyst?
A: Yeah, I do, and it was a stupid one. We were playing the Falcons, and I was so ticked off after I threw an interception, I went to make a tackle and was planning to make this big hammer hit with my forearm and I broke my finger. It wasn’t real smart.
Q: Did you at least drop the hammer on him?
A: Uh, no. (Laughs) I made the tackle, but my hammer wasn’t very strong.
Q: "Monday Night Football” has had its share of broadcast teams that really blended well and others that didn’t seem to mesh. What do you think is the most important factor in making the kind of team that informs, entertains and keeps people coming back?
A: I think it’s easy. I think it’s chemistry. I think when people watch the game, they genuinely have to believe that the people talking about the game like each other and respect each other. After that Monday-night game I did with Dick Vermeil and Brad Nessler, the reviews were outstanding. And the approach we talked about is real simple. We all get along. We’re going to be three guys sitting in the bar talking football. And that came across on the telecast. And that’s the same approach I take in everything I do. I really have gotten along with everybody I’ve worked with. And now that I know all the people I will be working with, I think it’ll work very easily.
Q: There seemed to be a lot of people nitpicking Vince Young before the draft last year, whether it was about his throwing motion, mechanics or his Wonderlic test score. But when he got on the field, the Titans really responded and there seemed to be no stopping him. What did you think of the “Vince vibe”?
A: There is something to that, and I don’t think it’s something that you can ever define. I watched him throw every ball at Texas in preparation for the draft a year ago. I liked him an awful lot. I didn’t love him. I thought he should have stayed another year at Texas because I saw the incremental growth he had from year to year, and I thought it would have served him well to stay another year to keep learning. But despite some of my misgivings about his delivery and things like that, I had a chance to spend a couple of days with him when he won the Maxwell Award. We spent a couple days in Atlantic City over the weekend of the awards dinner. There’s something about the guy, and there’s something to be said about that. He’s engaging, he’s friendly, he’s very confident and he’s very comfortable in his own skin, so he’s clearly got an edge in that area. And I think that personality has served him well.
Q: People use the cliché of “going into battle” with people all the time, but it truly seems like he can rally his teammates.
A: He certainly made some huge plays and contributed to the success they had. He did a real good job with it last year, but the question I have is how he’ll handle adversity in the long run. The thing I worry about now is: Have we raised the bar so high for him? All of his supporters are saying, ‘I told you so, I told you so.’ Now does that make the fall even steeper if he doesn’t play well? I’m always a little bit leery to put the guy in Canton after half a year as the starter. I’d rather be cautiously optimistic than like a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon. But there’s no doubt he’s such a dynamic player who can really galvanize a team.
Q: What is your feeling on how to play a rookie quarterback? Did you approve of the Broncos’ midseason move to Jay Cutler while they were in the playoff hunt?
A: My personal feeling is that you make that decision to start him right
away or go to Year Two. Much like Peyton Manning went out there and took a beating but learned the game, or you do it like Carson Palmer, where you learn the game by getting on the bench and staying behind Jon Kitna before Marvin Lewis finally says it’s your football team later. I think it’s difficult to make that decision during the course of the season. But it’s hard to question the success Mike Shanahan has had. He has a greater feel for his players than I will ever have, but I’m just talking about a general concept. Either you start him right away or you sit him for the year.
Q: What did you see from Cutler? Did you feel like he adapted well to the NFL and what defenses threw at him for those five games?
A: Absolutely. I had him as my No. 1 quarterback coming out last year. Now a lot of that is based on projection, but what I saw at Vanderbilt was his ability to throw under duress. He didn’t have a great supporting cast, he always had people around his body, around his legs, and had to throw from different platforms because of the pass rush that seemed to always be in his face. He threw into tight windows, and his receiving corps was mediocre at best (at Vanderbilt). He’s a guy who elevated his team in college. It was evident with his big, strong arm how Mike Shanahan began to attack the entire field, not only sideline to sideline horizontally, but vertically with the deep passing game and those bootlegs and rollouts. I liked Cutler the best in my projection, and I still think he’s going to be the best (from that class) when it’s all said and done.
Q: In sticking with that impressive rookie crop, how about assessing what you saw from Matt Leinart. Did you feel like Leinart’s experience in the big games at USC benefited him when he made the jump?
A: I thought he played terrific. I’m a huge Matt Leinart fan, and I think he’s going to have an outstanding future. Here’s a guy I felt might struggle a little bit in the NFL because of the great success he had at USC. He was like almost the antithesis of Jay Cutler. I went through a game and a half of film his senior year, and he never got hit. I remember getting some e-mails after the draft last year where some people thought I questioned his toughness. And that wasn’t the case at all. I questioned that he just didn’t get hit. I didn’t know how tough he is because I’d plug in two days’ worth of film of Cutler and see him getting the crap beat out of him. But when I’d watch Matt Leinart, man, he wasn’t getting hit at all. So in projecting him to the NFL, yeah, I could see he had the throws and all those things, but all of a sudden in the NFL, you’ve got all these bodies flying around and the different blitz schemes and all that. And I thought he handled all those little nuances of the NFL game very well in a short period of time last year.
Q: Who do you see as the winners and losers in free agency thus far?
A: It’s simple. I think the Buffalo Bills are losers in free agency right now. They have lost some impact players. Takeo Spikes, London Fletcher, you can’t lose players like that. Nate Clements, Willis McGahee, you can’t lose players like that. We all know there’s turnover in this league, but then you look to see who they gained, and you don’t see the balance sheet. Clearly to me, the winner thus far is New England. They were awful at wide receiver last year. Bill Belichick, one of my dear friends, got angry at me when I called them the slowest wide receiving corps in the NFL a year ago. However, I was right (laughs).
Q: He can be upset all he wants, but deep down, he probably knew that too.
A: (Laughs) He could’ve complained all he wanted until I saw what he’s doing this offseason (signing WRs Donté Stallworth, Wes Welker and Kelley Washington). He knew it as well. … And then they get (former Ravens OLB) Adalius Thomas, who I think is perfect for what they like to do. He’s an incredibly gifted athlete, he’s a versatile athlete, and when Bill gets a guy like that, a McGinest or a Vrabel, he knows how to use them.
http://www.profootballweekly.com/PFW/Features/NFL+Features/2007/modglin032907.htm
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Ron Jaworski sits down to discuss joining 'MNF,' free agency and the Vince Young vibe By Trent Modglin ([email protected])
March 29, 2007
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Ron Jaworski is on cloud nine these days, and it’s kind of hard to blame him. He’s always animated when talking football, but now, as the new addition to the “Monday Night Football” booth, he’s got a little extra energy in his voice. Reason being, he has reached the pinnacle of the business, and he has done so through hard work. The former Eagles quarterback and longtime ESPN studio analyst replaces Joe Theismann alongside Mike Tirico and Tony Kornheiser, and he sounds like a kid on Christmas morning.
Jaworski sat down to talk about his move to the coveted "MNF" booth, trying to lower the boom on someone after an interception and just what it is about Vince Young that’s so appealing.
Q: Can you sit back and begin to put this week into perspective at all?
A: You know, it’s been five weeks since they offered me the job to be the analyst on “Monday Night Football,” and I still don’t think it’s set in. I believe I’m still in a little bit of shock. It’s obviously a job that everyone would covet, and it’s the signature of ESPN now. Growing up, playing ball and then going to Youngstown State and watching the first “Monday Night Football” game, Cleveland and the Giants, in my college dorm room, and realizing now that I’ll be a part of that broadcast team, it’s mind-boggling.
Q: I guess it depends what sport you gravitate toward most, but I would assume this is considered the top perch for sports broadcasters, isn’t it?
A: Oh, no question about it. It’s a job that everyone covets and aspires to have, and I think I’m very fortunate to have this opportunity. I’ve worked diligently for 17 years now at every job that ESPN has assigned me to, and I think that has prepared me for this opportunity. I’m looking forward to working with Mike and Tony in the booth and Suzy and Michelle on the sideline. I know them all very well and have worked with them all in the past, and I know the passion and enthusiasm is there. … I think a good team is in place, and I think this thing is going to take off and I’m really excited to be part of the bunch.
Q: You’ve done a lot of different things with ESPN, but most of it has been as a studio analyst. Have you sought out advice from anyone in the booth since the hiring?
A: Throughout my broadcast career, I’ve always sought advice from people that have been in the profession. When I see Phil Simms or Troy Aikman, I would ask those guys about things. Just in passing, the conversation might be about what they like, what they don’t like, the trends they see, what they would like to see from an analyst. I’ve always had those conversations. I was actually with Dan Dierdorf yesterday, and Dan was actually in the booth doing what I’m going to be doing. He gave me some excellent observations. I intend to get to Dan Fouts and Boomer Esiason in order to talk to them about their experiences and see what advice they can give me. Before I do our first practice game and then preseason games, I will have spoken to as many people that have been involved in “Monday Night Football” as possible to get a good cross-section of how people feel about it and how they approach doing a game.
Q: One of the big decisions in all of football last year was Tony Kornheiser’s hiring. What did you think about his first year and what his personality brings to the booth?
A: The first thing you have to realize is “Monday Night Football” is kind of a hybrid. I know this because I’ve been watching it for 38 years or whatever it’s been on. I know it’s not strictly your football X’s and O’s. There’s a lot that goes into it. It’s got a tremendous built-in audience. It’s about entertainment, it’s about marketing, it’s about promoting. I already understand that part going in just from my own personal experience watching it. So I’m not going in with my eyes closed saying we’re just going to do X’s and O’s and talk football. I understand that. And Tony does bring a unique perspective. He’s a bright, brilliant guy. I’ve worked with him for probably close to a decade now on a number of ESPN projects, “Pardon the Interruption,” radio shows, TV shows, and I’m excited about doing more. I think Tony will make me better. His knowledge and understanding of the big picture will certainly help me. And Mike Tirico and I worked together for 10 years on the “Monday NFL Countdown” show. If I’ve had success in this business, a large portion can be attributed to Mike Tirico. He taught me the television business when I first got involved. I knew football. He taught me television.
Q: I know you’re a big film watcher, but now with only two teams per week to really concentrate on, do you anticipate holing yourself up in front of the TV as much?
A: I would never forget what got me to this position right here, and it’s my knowledge of the game and the X’s and O’s of the game. Again, I don’t want to make people think I’m not going to have any fun doing this because I’m going to have a ball, and it’s not going to be this in-depth X’s and O’s deal. I’m going to tell people why a play worked, why it didn’t work, why a team’s successful or unsuccessful, those sort of things, in my opinion, but I’m not going to bore them with some sophisticated X’s and O’s that they wouldn’t understand. But I do love the X’s and O’s, because what it does is make coaches much more open to me to talk about the game. When I call coaches now, it could be on a Tuesday or Wednesday when they’re deeply engrossed in game-planning, and they’ll take my call because they love talking football. Other media guys call coaches to talk about players, or their off-the-field problems or a contract or something controversial. But I just want to talk about the game. I can put the phone down and come back in 10 minutes and they’re still talking.
Q: Can it work both ways, where maybe the coach goes to get a sandwich and comes back 10 minutes later and you’re still talking?
A: (Laughs) Probably. It works both ways.
Q: Do you have a favorite memory from “Monday Night Football,” either as a player or just watching it as a fan or analyst?
A: Yeah, I do, and it was a stupid one. We were playing the Falcons, and I was so ticked off after I threw an interception, I went to make a tackle and was planning to make this big hammer hit with my forearm and I broke my finger. It wasn’t real smart.
Q: Did you at least drop the hammer on him?
A: Uh, no. (Laughs) I made the tackle, but my hammer wasn’t very strong.
Q: "Monday Night Football” has had its share of broadcast teams that really blended well and others that didn’t seem to mesh. What do you think is the most important factor in making the kind of team that informs, entertains and keeps people coming back?
A: I think it’s easy. I think it’s chemistry. I think when people watch the game, they genuinely have to believe that the people talking about the game like each other and respect each other. After that Monday-night game I did with Dick Vermeil and Brad Nessler, the reviews were outstanding. And the approach we talked about is real simple. We all get along. We’re going to be three guys sitting in the bar talking football. And that came across on the telecast. And that’s the same approach I take in everything I do. I really have gotten along with everybody I’ve worked with. And now that I know all the people I will be working with, I think it’ll work very easily.
Q: There seemed to be a lot of people nitpicking Vince Young before the draft last year, whether it was about his throwing motion, mechanics or his Wonderlic test score. But when he got on the field, the Titans really responded and there seemed to be no stopping him. What did you think of the “Vince vibe”?
A: There is something to that, and I don’t think it’s something that you can ever define. I watched him throw every ball at Texas in preparation for the draft a year ago. I liked him an awful lot. I didn’t love him. I thought he should have stayed another year at Texas because I saw the incremental growth he had from year to year, and I thought it would have served him well to stay another year to keep learning. But despite some of my misgivings about his delivery and things like that, I had a chance to spend a couple of days with him when he won the Maxwell Award. We spent a couple days in Atlantic City over the weekend of the awards dinner. There’s something about the guy, and there’s something to be said about that. He’s engaging, he’s friendly, he’s very confident and he’s very comfortable in his own skin, so he’s clearly got an edge in that area. And I think that personality has served him well.
Q: People use the cliché of “going into battle” with people all the time, but it truly seems like he can rally his teammates.
A: He certainly made some huge plays and contributed to the success they had. He did a real good job with it last year, but the question I have is how he’ll handle adversity in the long run. The thing I worry about now is: Have we raised the bar so high for him? All of his supporters are saying, ‘I told you so, I told you so.’ Now does that make the fall even steeper if he doesn’t play well? I’m always a little bit leery to put the guy in Canton after half a year as the starter. I’d rather be cautiously optimistic than like a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon. But there’s no doubt he’s such a dynamic player who can really galvanize a team.
Q: What is your feeling on how to play a rookie quarterback? Did you approve of the Broncos’ midseason move to Jay Cutler while they were in the playoff hunt?
A: My personal feeling is that you make that decision to start him right
away or go to Year Two. Much like Peyton Manning went out there and took a beating but learned the game, or you do it like Carson Palmer, where you learn the game by getting on the bench and staying behind Jon Kitna before Marvin Lewis finally says it’s your football team later. I think it’s difficult to make that decision during the course of the season. But it’s hard to question the success Mike Shanahan has had. He has a greater feel for his players than I will ever have, but I’m just talking about a general concept. Either you start him right away or you sit him for the year.
Q: What did you see from Cutler? Did you feel like he adapted well to the NFL and what defenses threw at him for those five games?
A: Absolutely. I had him as my No. 1 quarterback coming out last year. Now a lot of that is based on projection, but what I saw at Vanderbilt was his ability to throw under duress. He didn’t have a great supporting cast, he always had people around his body, around his legs, and had to throw from different platforms because of the pass rush that seemed to always be in his face. He threw into tight windows, and his receiving corps was mediocre at best (at Vanderbilt). He’s a guy who elevated his team in college. It was evident with his big, strong arm how Mike Shanahan began to attack the entire field, not only sideline to sideline horizontally, but vertically with the deep passing game and those bootlegs and rollouts. I liked Cutler the best in my projection, and I still think he’s going to be the best (from that class) when it’s all said and done.
Q: In sticking with that impressive rookie crop, how about assessing what you saw from Matt Leinart. Did you feel like Leinart’s experience in the big games at USC benefited him when he made the jump?
A: I thought he played terrific. I’m a huge Matt Leinart fan, and I think he’s going to have an outstanding future. Here’s a guy I felt might struggle a little bit in the NFL because of the great success he had at USC. He was like almost the antithesis of Jay Cutler. I went through a game and a half of film his senior year, and he never got hit. I remember getting some e-mails after the draft last year where some people thought I questioned his toughness. And that wasn’t the case at all. I questioned that he just didn’t get hit. I didn’t know how tough he is because I’d plug in two days’ worth of film of Cutler and see him getting the crap beat out of him. But when I’d watch Matt Leinart, man, he wasn’t getting hit at all. So in projecting him to the NFL, yeah, I could see he had the throws and all those things, but all of a sudden in the NFL, you’ve got all these bodies flying around and the different blitz schemes and all that. And I thought he handled all those little nuances of the NFL game very well in a short period of time last year.
Q: Who do you see as the winners and losers in free agency thus far?
A: It’s simple. I think the Buffalo Bills are losers in free agency right now. They have lost some impact players. Takeo Spikes, London Fletcher, you can’t lose players like that. Nate Clements, Willis McGahee, you can’t lose players like that. We all know there’s turnover in this league, but then you look to see who they gained, and you don’t see the balance sheet. Clearly to me, the winner thus far is New England. They were awful at wide receiver last year. Bill Belichick, one of my dear friends, got angry at me when I called them the slowest wide receiving corps in the NFL a year ago. However, I was right (laughs).
Q: He can be upset all he wants, but deep down, he probably knew that too.
A: (Laughs) He could’ve complained all he wanted until I saw what he’s doing this offseason (signing WRs Donté Stallworth, Wes Welker and Kelley Washington). He knew it as well. … And then they get (former Ravens OLB) Adalius Thomas, who I think is perfect for what they like to do. He’s an incredibly gifted athlete, he’s a versatile athlete, and when Bill gets a guy like that, a McGinest or a Vrabel, he knows how to use them.
http://www.profootballweekly.com/PFW/Features/NFL+Features/2007/modglin032907.htm
