The more we watch Monday Night Football, the more it becomes clear that the revelatory idea that drove its popularity wasn't primetime or football on a Monday or a nationally televised game — it was Howard Cosell. Because the show hasn't really been worth watching since he left.

Just about every event he covered, he made more important, more interesting, more legendary, by force of his words and personality.

Famous and hugely popular for being outspoken, opinionated, and unafraid to ask the right questions, Cosell was eventually run out of the business for being outspoken, opinionated and unafraid to ask the right questions. Whether he was a journalistic genius or an uncultured lug seems to depend on the perspective — and what he happened to say that day.

In the near term, popular opinion seems to be split on the matter. On one hand, current journalists seem to be told to emulate the goyishe Joe Theismann (or Joe Buck, eccccchhhh) and stay nice and homogeneous. But at the same time, sports programs seem to be obsessed with finding the next Cosell (landsman Tony Kornheiser was the most recent to be anointed, and has suffered because of the comparison).

Regardless, Cosell is very much a Jew and you can see from the scores we're happy to have him. There's really no debate about his Jewish-ness, we just wanted the opportunity to wax lyrical about an often misunderstood, though never uninteresting man.