I watched Monday Night Football last night, mainly to check out the debut of the Tirico / Theismann / Kornheiser team. And I liked it, and I’ll get to that in a minute.

But I feel like it’s important to address my one major complaint first, because it’s a big one. If you missed it, ESPN is doing, at several points throughout the game, segements where Kornheiser answers fan e-mails. Accompanying this segement is a looped ‘song,’ in which men shout “Tony!” repeatedly.

Please, hear me out on this one, ESPN, I beg of you. For my sake and your sake, lose that fucking song. It has to go. It HAS to go. You can keep the viewer e-mail segments if you feel like you have to, but that song makes me want to put my fist through my television screen and clutch the live wires inside until they electrocute and burn to death every living cell in my body.

It sounds like a local radio commercial jingle that was written by an 80s boy band that hasn’t been able to find work since their lead singer was caught blowing an ice cream truck driver outside of a Toys-R-Us. That’s what it sounds like.

I like Tony Kornheiser, and it’s cool that you have him on Monday Night Football… but he isn’t so cool that he deserves his own one-lyric song that shouts his name over and over again. No one’s that cool. That song is the kind of thing that will make people hate Tony Kornheiser. Burn every recording you have it. It’s not enough to just stop playing it. Gather up every recording of it that exists, put them in a pile, pour gasoline over it, and light them on fire. Do not let anyone else hear that thing ever again, because it is terrible, and it’s going to get Tony Kornheiser killed.

Anyway… about the rest of the show.

It’s probably too rare that I compliment television broadcast teams, and I’m not sure if it’s that they’re all bad, or if it’s because I’m such a snide prick, but… I don’t have nice things to say about too many people that call games. But, after watching the predictably ugly Vikings/Raiders preseason game last night, I really think ESPN’s on the right track with the team they’ve assembled.

I like Mike Tirico about 47,000% more than I like Al Michaels. And Joe Theismann, I know a lot of you aren’t big fans, and I really haven’t been, either, but he’s a different guy without Paul Maguire around. Theismann actually has his moments where he’s insightful and pleasant, but they were extremely few and far between when he had to sit next to Paul Maguire, who might as well have been wearing a rodeo clown outfit. Theismann’s still a little too afraid to say a bad word about anyone, but I can think of guys who are a lot worse.

And Kornheiser was pretty good last night (here’s a recap, if you’re looking for one). Considering that it was his first stab at it, I’d bump his grade up to exceptional. The big thing with him is that he’s not going to pretend to be something he’s not. Last night, he asked Theismann what a “silent count” was, because he had no idea. I’d think that anyone who watches football with any level of seriousness would be familiar with the silent count, but he wasn’t. And he wasn’t afraid to let people know that, and I think that’s good. It would be easy for someone in that position to just try and fake some deep football knowledge, and I hope he never succumbs to that. I just want him to play his role, do what he does, and things will be fine.

Even Suzy Kolber was on top of her game last night, comparing Al Davis to Fidel Castro. I think she just meant that they’ve both been around forever and have no intention of going away willingly, but I’d like to think she was also implying that they’re both evil, murderous, lowlifes who will burn in hell.