ESPN doesn’t need Gruden for MNF gobbledygook

having left ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” after six years, is still afflicting the telecasts.

Gruden arrived with a wellreasoned plan to speak superfluous platitudes — “He’ll be a big addition to this Miami Dolphins football team” — say nothing of import, pay small attention to the games and even less attention to accomplished play-by-play man

leaving McDonough to dance with himself.

So, when Gruden bolted to coach the Raiders, ESPN fixed this mess by demoting McDonough back to college football and assembling a new mess, still in development. JON GRUDEN, Sean McDonough, Interesting, is that just after departing ESPN, Gruden ripped the NFL’s “instant” replay rules as absurd — something he could’ve said almost weekly on MNF, but didn’t. Now, as if we’ve been pals since $8.95 steak dinners at Tad’s, we have Tess, Whitt and Boog — freshly promoted Joe Tessitore, freshly retired Cowboys tight end Jason Witten and freshly promoted former NFL defensive tackle Booger McFarland.

McFarland speaks from a ridiculous contraption. He’s suspended in a chair along the sidelines, a mobile device perhaps inspired by Stephen

Hawking, but one McFarland says suits his needs as it contains a cup-holder.

From that device he’s heard from who-knows-where, like an airport public address interruption. He’s big on interpretation, such as explaining hard hits as “messages” and suggesting that QBs “should take what the defense gives them.”

His Week 3 defense of suspended — alleged sexual assault — Buccaneers QB Jameis Win

ston, a career miscreant starting at Florida State, as a victim of harsh NFL punishment still rings weak, even insulting.

But wherever he is, McFarland seems to have a good view of line play, which he speaks with applicable relevancy.

So is McFarland’s perch another ill-conceived, expensive and worthless ESPN gizmo? Why not have him in the booth with Witten and Tessitore?

What I’m told is Witten’s reps demanded their guy work in a twoman booth, quite a demand from a first-year announcer. But ESPN didn’t realize Ray Lewis couldn’t speak a discernible sentence until it won the race to hire him.

Witten tries hard, too hard — meaning he makes short stories long, as in “somebody on the outside has got to step up to stretch the field for this Washington offense.” Witten, like Fox’s Troy

Aikman, is big on “stepping up.” Tessitore is a grad student in the Mike Mayock School of Dance, Floral Design and Silly Talk. The QB doesn’t scramble, he “extends the play.” A leaping catch is the result of “highpointing the ball.” He seems eager to prove that he wants to be heard as slick rather than wise.

The problem with it being too early to tell if this team will be any good is that it isn’t that early. They make an awful lot of noise. See-it/say-it is followed by needless, three-man tack-on talk, standard modern excess.

How do TV networks prevail upon their top announcers to speak less because, after all, it’s TV? Given that I don’t know of a single time such advice has been given, let alone, followed, I don’t know.