It was a long two years for Booger McFarland and Monday Night Football. The analyst tells The New York Post’s Andrew Marchand he has no regrets and has a couple years left on his contract with ESPN.
NEW COLUMN: I spoke with Booger McFarland about being dropped from Monday Night Football.https://t.co/9417ZIyEXJ
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) May 14, 2020
“It was a good experience,” McFarland said. “I don’t have anything bad to say about Monday Night. Obviously, it is one of the top jobs, if not the top job, in the industry. Overall, regardless of the outcome, it was a very good experience.
… “For me, the constant speculation was not that big of a deal Would you like not to have it? Sure, come on, man. That’s human nature. Did it affect me or bother me one iota? Not really.”
McFarland wound up in the Booger Mobile for the first season with Joe Tessitore and Jason Witten in the booth. Being above the sidelines presented a challenge when it came to building chemistry.
“Overall, when you talk about broadcasting, it was tough for a three-man booth to be as cohesive as it could be with one of the people 75 yards away,” McFarland said.
One interesting comment came regarding the build-up to the debut of the trio in 2018. Jay Rothman, then the MNF producer, said Tessitorre was a “young Brent Musburger/Frank Sinatra combo,” while Witten was “Captain America” and McFarland will be “football’s Charles Barkley.”
It was a billing that created impossible expectations.
“For me, I always try to approach things and I’ve always learned that the best approach is the humble approach,” McFarland said. “That is the way I go about things. Unfortunately, you can’t control what other people say.”
As for the future, it is at ESPN.
“I don’t really know just yet,” McFarland told The Post. “I have a couple of years left on my contract so I’m not going anywhere, so I’m assuming that we get through this pandemic and everything that is going on with that, we will figure it out.”