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Why Is There a Monday Night Football Doubleheader in Week 2?

Also in Traina Thoughts: ‘Good Morning Football’ host has a slip-up; Cardinals comeback leads to great calls; best call of the weekend and more.

Jimmy Traina

1. NFL fans will be treated to a double dip tonight with the Titans and Bills kicking off at 7:15 p.m. ET and the Vikings and Eagles getting underway at 8:30 p.m. ET.

Steve Levy, Louis Riddick and Dan Orlovsky will have the call of Tennessee-Buffalo on ESPN, while Joe Buck and Troy Aikman will work Minnesota-Philadelphia on ABC. ESPN has said it will liberally use double boxes on both networks during the overlap to keep viewers updated on both matchups.

So, why are we getting a doubleheader in Week 2 and why did we only get one Monday-night game in Week 1?

There are a few reasons. For starters, tonight is a little bit of an experiment for ESPN. Next season, the network will air three Monday-night doubleheaders. But the start times for next season’s doubleheaders haven’t been established. ESPN could opt to have overlap games like tonight or they could go back to the 7 p.m./10 p.m. doubleheader that it has aired for several seasons on the opening Monday or it could decide on an entirely different start structure for the two games. It could also air the three doubleheaders at three different times.

As for this season, ESPN wanted to switch up this year’s doubleheader from Week 1 to Week 2 in part because it wanted to showcase its new $165 million booth in the season opener. After years of trying to stabilize the Monday Night Football broadcast team, ESPN stole Buck and Aikman away from Fox, where they called games together for 20 seasons, and instantly solved all of its MNF announcer issues.

In addition, with ESPN landing Russell Wilson’s return to Seattle in Week 1, the network was more than happy to make that a standalone game.

This plan gives ESPN two monster weeks to start the season instead of just one. So far, the experiment has worked swimmingly for ESPN/ABC, which drew nearly 20 million viewers for last week’s Broncos-Seahawks game.

Overlapping tonight’s two games instead of going to a straight 7 p.m./10 p.m. doubleheader also eliminates the second game ending at 1 a.m. on the East Coast. That should help the ratings for tonight’s games since Titans-Bills will be over by the time the Vikings-Eagles are in the third quarter.

Watch MNF live with fuboTV: Start a free trial today!

2. New Good Morning Football cohost Jamie Erdahl got a little too excited talking about Tua Tagovailoa on Monday’s show.

3. Underrated and versatile ESPN play-by-play man Dave Pasch is also the Cardinals’ radio broadcaster, and he had an outstanding call of Arizona’s game-winning fumble return touchdown.

On the TV side, CBS’s Greg Gumbel did a tremendous job calling Kyler Murray’s surreal two-point conversion in the fourth quarter that helped the Cardinals pull off the wild comeback.

4. The single best call of the weekend came from Appalachian State’s radio booth. In case you somehow missed it, App State beat Troy on one of the most unbelievable Hail Marys that you’ll ever see. The call was great, but not because of how the play-by-play guy described the play. It was great, because you couldn’t understand one word that he was saying; there was nothing but ove-modulated jibberish being yelled, and it was complete pandemonium. 

5. This is me every time there’s a Yankees game airing on only a streaming service.

Tommy did apologize for breaking another tablet after the game.

6. The best part of Fox’s Mark Sanchez dropping a porn reference during the Falcons game against the Rams on Sunday is how he drops a “holy smokes” right afterward.

7. The latest SI Media Podcast features an interview with New York Post sports media columnist Andrew Marchand. Topics we covered on the show include:

  • What to expect from Amazon Prime Video and Thursday Night Football, but the biggest challenge facing Prime Video
  • ESPN hits a home run with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman
  • Pat McAfee joining College GameDay
  • Strong early ratings for the NFL and college football
  • NBC’s new booth for Notre Dame games
  • Whether rules analysts are overrated
  • LIV Golf’s TV future

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.

You can also watch the SI Media Podcast on YouTube.

8. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Today is Jimmy Fallon’s 48th birthday. This is probably the best thing he’s ever done on The Tonight Show.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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