From 2007-2011, Ron Jaworski was a part of the Monday Night Football broadcast for ESPN, so he would have the inside scoop on the MNF experience.
On the podcast NFL Explained with Michael Yam and Aditi Kinkhabwala, Jaworski was one of the guests along with Melissa Stark from the NFL Network on an episode solely about the history of Monday Night Football. In fact, Jaworski found out he got the job while he was at an Arena Football League game as part owner and team president of the Philadelphia Soul.
“It was absolutely crazy…We were playing a game and that’s when I got notified I was going to be asked to do Monday Night Football, at halftime of that game. I was told, Norby Williamson at the time was the coordinating producer, he came late to the game because his plane was delayed. At halftime, he told me you are going to get the deal for Monday Night Football, but you can’t tell anyone.”
The reason that Williamson couldn’t go public with the news that Jaworski was joining Monday Night Football was because he had not told Joe Theismann what was going on with the changes.
“Norby was very professional about his approach. Joe Theismann was calling games with Tony Kornheiser and Mike Tirico. He said I’m going to meet with Joe personally and let him know a change is being made, so I totally respected the professionalism of Norby and Joe handled it very well. To this day, we remain dear friends. My wife was sitting next to me at the game, so I asked could I tell my wife?”
“I couldn’t have been more ecstatic. To work with Mike Tirico, who was kind of my mentor all along and Tony Kornheiser, who I worked with for a couple of years and Jon Gruden. It was five remarkable years of my life. Chip Dean was a great producer. Jay Rothman was absolutely outstanding. The resources that ESPN threw into Monday Night Football, we had more people than football teams have. They wanted to be right and we think we delivered a great product.”
On the podcast, Jaworski did talk about the moment that he swore during a game back in 2011 between the Patriots and the Dolphins:
“I didn’t think I did, but I think I did. It was slightly embarrassing and at the time was very embarrassing. We went to a break and Jay Rothman says, Jaws, I think you swore. I did say ‘shit’, so it wasn’t like a bad word. Jay says, you got to apologize. When we came out of the break, the camera was directly on me and I got Gruden and Tirico next to me and they were laughing.”
While it had to be an embarrassing moment for Jaworski, it did get him some recognition from Howard Stern on Stern’s radio show, which stood out to someone in the Jaworski household:
“The next morning, my daughter, who watches the games, says ‘Howard Stern is talking about you on radio’. My daughter was more impressed with that. Stern said some refreshing comments saying that’s how Jaws calls a game.”
