ESPN has too many damn football analysts, and you cannot convince me otherwise. On Tuesday, the network announced the hiring of yet another NFL analyst, and a report indicated they would be hiring another college football analyst.
The new NFL analyst is former Patriots standout Rob Ninkovich, who had an 11-year NFL career, worked with WBZ in Boston as a reporter during four Patriots preseason games, and served as an ESPN guest analyst in May. His duties with ESPN will (for now) include spots on NFL Live, SportsCenter, and a variety of ESPN Radio shows, and his debut comes this Saturday from (naturally) Patriots camp during SportsCenter on the Road.
Last week, ESPN announced that Tedy Bruschi would be moving to the Sunday NFL Countdown set, replacing Charles Woodson (who left the network in February). ESPN also lost analysts Darren Woodson and Bill Polian earlier this year, while Jason Witten left his MNF analyst position to much rejoicing from NFL fans at the end of February.
As for the new college football analyst, it’s reportedly going to be Mark Sanchez. The New York Post is reporting that he’s being tabbed to replace Mack Brown on ABC’s college football studio show, which has experienced plenty of upheaval in recent years. Last summer, Jonathan Vilma replaced Booger McFarland alongside Brown and host Kevin Negandhi when Booger took the MNF analyst job. Two summers ago, Negandhi was given the full-time hosting gig on ABC, and McFarland took over for the laid-off Mark May. For over two decades, John Saunders hosted the ABC studio show until his death in August of 2016. Stan Verrett took over that fall from Saunders before Negandhi was named as the full-time replacement.
