ESPN's Sean McDonough Shares How Awkward It Was Like Working With Jon Gruden On MNF

While talking to Jimmy Traina on the SI Media Podcast this week, former Monday Night Football play-by-play announcer Sean McDonough shared what it was like working with Jon Gruden for years in the booth. Spoiler alert: it was awkward...

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“I think, to be totally candid, Jon Gruden enjoyed the X-and-O part of it,” McDonough told Traina, as transcribed by Pro Football Talk. “He loved the telestrator. He told me when I first got the job, ‘I don’t like stories.’ So he didn’t want the stories and he didn’t want to engage in conversation. There were times when I would ask him a question or make a point and he didn’t respond, and I think it was just because he was so focused on, ‘I’m gonna dive into this play,’ and he just didn’t want to do it.”

“There were times it came across as being awkward, and it was awkward,” McDonough continued. “It was awkward for me. You’re standing there next to somebody wondering, ‘If I ask him a question about this, is he gonna answer it or is he gonna be annoyed that I asked him?’ So it was uncomfortable. . . .

“The part of it that bothered me was the narrative of some people in your line of work, ‘Oh, well that was a little too big for McDonough.’ I did the World Series when I was 30. I don’t think anybody thought I was nervous or out of place.”

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(The Spun)