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GREEN BAY (5-5) at NEW ORLEANS (5-5)
Monday, Nov. 24 - Superdome - 7:30 p.m. CST



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WITH THE CALL

- ESPN enters its third season as host of the most successful series in sports television history, Monday Night Football. Play-by-play man Mike Tirico is joined by analysts Ron Jaworski and Tony Kornheiser for the 39th season of MNF broadcasts.

- The contest also will air as a simulcast locally on WBAY (Ch. 2) in Green Bay and WISN (Ch. 12) in Milwaukee. ESPN International will air the contest in three languages to over 180 countries.


PACKERS, SAINTS SQUARE OFF ON MONDAY NIGHT

- Green Bay heads south to New Orleans for an NFC showdown on Monday Night Football. Each club comes into the contest at 5-5 and in the thick of the NFC playoff hunt.

- The Packers forced a three-way tie atop the NFC North behind a 37-3 victory over the Chicago Bears last Sunday. They controlled nearly every aspect of the game against their oldest rivals in what was clearly their most complete performance of the season.

- The Saints defeated the Chiefs 30-20 at Arrowhead Stadium over the weekend but remain in fourth place in the NFC South.

- The Packers lost their first two road games of the month by a combined four points. Despite the small losing streak, they have still won 10 of their last 15 away from home.

- Green Bay will look to snap that two-game road skid at the Superdome, a venue it has visited just once in the past 12 seasons.

- The Packers and Saints meet for the third time in four seasons. Green Bay holds a 14-6 advantage in the all-time series, which has never been played in prime time.

- Both teams make a return appearance on MNF after playing the Vikings earlier this season in the prime-time slot. The Packers beat the Vikings while the Saints lost at home. Green Bay will appear once more on Monday night in Week 16 at Chicago.

- The Packers, owners of the NFC's longest MNF appearance streak (1992-2008), have played remarkably even in the Monday night spotlight. Their all-time record in the game stands at 26-25-1.

Ugh, the second of three times we have to listen to Tony Kornheiser drool over Favre for 3 1/2 hours.

Part of the season where every game is a must win.
Lose and likely fall to 3rd with the bears/vikings playing Rams/Jags

Want to stay up front when coming to the final division games.

You can't lose this game and consider yourself a playoff team.

Captain Erv wrote:Ugh, the second of three times we have to listen to Tony Kornheiser drool over Favre for 3 1/2 hours.

Hopefully, Tirico punches him if that happens again. Seriously, Kornheiser has to go, he's awful. It would be much better with just Tirico and Jaws.

James1980 wrote:

Captain Erv wrote:Ugh, the second of three times we have to listen to Tony Kornheiser drool over Favre for 3 1/2 hours.

Hopefully, Tirico punches him if that happens again. Seriously, Kornheiser has to go, he's awful. It would be much better with just Tirico and Jaws.

I love Kornheiser and Wilbon on PTI, but Kornheiser just isn't a fit for MNF.

I hope I'm not the only person who religiously reads TMQB on ESPN every week. Best weekly NFL column, hands down. I only mention this for two reasons.

One, Easterbook opens with something I've wanted to see for years. Microchips in the footballs to determine where a ball is down. It couldn't possibly be difficult to accomplish. It wouldn't be necessary on every play (though if the system got good enough, why not?) but it should have been implemented years ago on close plays, especially on 4th downs and goal line situations.

Second, this is an amazing stat:

TMQB wrote:Stats of the Week No. 5: Green Bay has nine touchdowns from its defense and special teams this season.

Stats of the Week No. 6: Oakland has nine touchdowns from its offense this season.

DrugBust wrote:One, Easterbook opens with something I've wanted to see for years. Microchips in the footballs to determine where a ball is down. It couldn't possibly be difficult to accomplish. It wouldn't be necessary on every play (though if the system got good enough, why not?) but it should have been implemented years ago on close plays, especially on 4th downs and goal line situations.

FIFA was waaaay ahead of you guys.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/g ... chip_x.htm

MNF has brought me to strongly dislike Kornheiser. Like somebody else said, he's fine on PTI, but I just can't stand listening to him on MNF. The Packer fans who DO want to hear about Brett Favre have decided to boycott watching Packer games this season, so when he goes on and on and on about Favre, he's doing it to an audience that wants to hear about anything but Favre.

I am unbelievably excited for this game--when the Packers go to NO I love it for some reason, just the locale I guess.

Kornheiser is a tremendous buzzkill though. I remember when I moved to DC area and he was writing columns for the Washington Post I thought he was hysterical.

But his act is about as stale as it gets to me now--his same old shtick just isn't funny to me any more. Plus some people just don't work on MNF--Dennis Miller who I think is great is the obvious example, I wanted to kill myself with his routine on MNF.

The bottom line is people in Kornheiser's age demo think he's just the funniest guy imaginable--and they run programs and networks.

DrugBust wrote:I hope I'm not the only person who religiously reads TMQB on ESPN every week. Best weekly NFL column, hands down. I only mention this for two reasons.

One, Easterbook opens with something I've wanted to see for years. Microchips in the footballs to determine where a ball is down. It couldn't possibly be difficult to accomplish. It wouldn't be necessary on every play (though if the system got good enough, why not?) but it should have been implemented years ago on close plays, especially on 4th downs and goal line situations.

Second, this is an amazing stat:

TMQB wrote:Stats of the Week No. 5: Green Bay has nine touchdowns from its defense and special teams this season.

Stats of the Week No. 6: Oakland has nine touchdowns from its offense this season.

I read/skim his articles every week but I really don't like them that much. Though, I love the stats section.

Reggie Bush is out.

With the Queens and Bears winning (along with the Cowgirls and Bucs), this is definitely a must win.

DrugBust wrote:I hope I'm not the only person who religiously reads TMQB on ESPN every week. Best weekly NFL column, hands down.

Sorry, but Easterbrook's holier-than-thou persona is a huge turn-off to his columns. And, he spends too much of his columns talking about things I don't care about/don't trust his opinion about - i.e. politics, news, cheerleaders, etc. Just give me the football and STFU, and his column would be 10x better.

I think Easterbook readers do so because of two things, an eye for stats you wouldn't hear about somewhere else and commentary on things not related to football. If you wanted nothing but football you would stick to Peter King or Dr. Z. Easterbrook's an intelligent guy and great writer. It would be a waste to have him stick to football.

Three things really annoy me about Easterbrook.

First, his anti basketball column a couple weeks ago was kind of annoying, especially because he was miss-characterizing a lot of the basketball trades he cited.

Second, he's kind of a hypocrite. He constantly will write about how teams should go for it on 4th and 1, its probably one of the things he writes about most consistently. When teams fail to go for it, he will include a large section in his paper. But when teams do go for it and then proceed to lose, he really doesnt mention anything. I think the same weekend as the basketball article, there were several situations in which teams went for it on 4th and 1 but didn't convert and then lost the game because of it. I think he has to do both sides of the issue if he is going to constantly bring it up.

Third, I agree with what humanrefutation said, he should just stick to football and cheerleaders. If I want to read about the other stuff, I would read his other articles, which I have done in the past. But when I go to page 2 or ESPN or SI, i am just looking for sports and maybe humor. Its annoying to have to go through his articles and figure out what sections are football and what sections are other stuff.

I do really like his stats stuff and I do have a ton of friends that love his work, so I can completely understand where you are coming from DB, I just don't personally like him.

Wade-A-Holic wrote:MNF has brought me to strongly dislike Kornheiser. Like somebody else said, he's fine on PTI, but I just can't stand listening to him on MNF. The Packer fans who DO want to hear about Brett Favre have decided to boycott watching Packer games this season, so when he goes on and on and on about Favre, he's doing it to an audience that wants to hear about anything but Favre.

It's not just Favre, Kornheiser is flat out annoying in nearly every MNF game i've watched. He just gets on topics that nobody really cares much about and will continue to ramble on and on and on and on about it until i actually will yell at the TV, someone please shut off his mic.

Anytime i've read something involving the topic of Kornheiser on MNF, all fans hate him, yet they keep him in the booth. I don't get it at all. ESPN needs to just admit they made a mistake and cut their losses before Kornheiser drives fans away from watching the game.

I watched the Jets/Titans game today and Favre played another great game. If that game had been on MNF instead, Kornheiser would have rambled on about Brett so much, the whole audience would have wanted a sniper to take out Kornheiser.

The only announcers that have ever really annoyed me are obvious homers and blatant hero worshippers.

I don't mind guys like Tony Kornheiser or Dennis Miller. They weren't hired for their football expertise or ability to do play by play, so don't get pissed when they offer a perspective that other guys like Aikman or Colinsworth won't, or they talk about things that you don't hear from ex-jocks that only know about what's going on in the huddle and on the field. If anything, get pissed at ABC or ESPN or NBC when they hire guys that have never played the sport to cover games.

But I think of all the commentators in football, the only team I like is calling the Thursday night games. I really like Bob Papa. He doesn't cram **** down your throat or believe dead air is a sin. Collinsworth is good enough to know that the public doesn't have to be babied on the nuances of football.

But yea, it's listening to the guys that should know better call games like someone on the field is marrying their daughter. Listening to the Nugs/Bucks game last week was the most painful experience I've had watching an NBA game. As brutal a game as it was, you would have thought that the Bucks were playing the 72 win Bulls, but better. Hero worshippers.

DrugBust wrote:But I think of all the commentators in football, the only team I like is calling the Thursday night games. I really like Bob Papa. He doesn't cram **** down your throat or believe dead air is a sin. Collinsworth is good enough to know that the public doesn't have to be babied on the nuances of football.

That dead air comment was right on. I think Kornheiser would have a complete meltdown if anything beyond 1.5 seconds went by without him hearing his own voice. Filibusters in the senate have more dead time than any broadcast I've seen which he has been a part of.

Captain Erv wrote:

James1980 wrote:

Captain Erv wrote:Ugh, the second of three times we have to listen to Tony Kornheiser drool over Favre for 3 1/2 hours.

Hopefully, Tirico punches him if that happens again. Seriously, Kornheiser has to go, he's awful. It would be much better with just Tirico and Jaws.

I love Kornheiser and Wilbon on PTI, but Kornheiser just isn't a fit for MNF.

I liked his show on ESPN Radio 4 or 5 years ago and PTI is pretty good, but you're right he isn't a good fit on MNF.