The blossoming shrub that was the Washington Redskins’ successful 2005 season bore fruit yesterday, as it was announced that the team will play in the inaugural Monday Night Football game of the 2006 season. The synergy is practically PTI-tastic, as it will also be the first MNF game for area sports curmudgeon Tony Kornheiser. And because Monday Night Football moves from ABC to ESPN this year, nobody will be watching the game without buying something. Yes, at the National Football League, the fan comes first!
The full NFL schedule will be released in April, but here’s what we know so far:
•Washington’s opponent for the first Monday night game will be whatever Minnesota Vikings are left after the area district attorney’s office gets through with them.
•After the Washington-Minnesota game, ESPN will broadcast a game between San Diego and Oakland. Kickoff is 10:15 p.m.! WTF?
•There will be three contests on Thanksgiving: Miami at Detroit, Tampa Bay at Dallas, and Denver at Kansas City. People generally think the Thanksgiving Day hosts are generally advantaged by this tradition, but Football Outsiders say otherwise.
•The first Sunday night game on NBC will pit Eli Manning’s Giants against Peyton Manning’s Colts. They will be competing for their father’s affection, just like all DCist writers do.
•FOX will broadcast a game between the Cowboys and Jaguars at 4:15pm on opening Sunday. It seems like an awfully random announcement, but it’s all about being fair and balanced.
This is the second time since the NFL decided to start pulling out all the stops for Opening Weekend that they have honored Washington, DC with some of the high-profile action. Four years ago, they and their corporate sponsors took over the National Mall in an orgy of football and bad lip-synching for a Thursday Night game with the New York Jets. That game featured then-starting quarterback Patrick Ramsey hooking up with Laveranues Coles under the watchful eye of coach Steve Spurrier. Since then, the quarterback has grown older, the coach less sucky, and the receivers’ names much, much easier to spell.
Washington’s opening game with the Minnesota Vikings will take place on September 11, 2006, so, yeah, you can expect an abundance of treacle bordering on the edge of good taste, too.
