Can you imagine the NFL without Monday Night Football?
On September 21, 1970, America sat down for the first regular-season broadcast of ABC’s brand-new Monday Night Football — the New York Jets against the Cleveland Browns.
Now here’s something I didn’t realize: NFL teams had played occasional Monday games before this. CBS and NBC had even experimented with a few Monday-night telecasts during the 1960s. But this was different. This was the beginning of a weekly national television institution.
And ABC didn’t treat it like an ordinary Sunday football game moved to Monday.
Producer Roone Arledge wanted a show. He roughly doubled the usual number of cameras, emphasized instant replay and graphics, and put three personalities in the booth: Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell and former Cowboys quarterback Don Meredith. Frank Gifford, who many of us associate with that classic booth, wouldn’t replace Jackson until 1971.
Then there was the game itself.
A huge 85,703 people packed Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Cleveland jumped out to a 14-0 lead, Homer Jones returned the second-half kickoff 94 yards for a touchdown, and Joe Namath kept fighting back. The Jets actually outgained Cleveland 454 yards to 221.
But with New York trailing 24-21 late in the game, Cleveland’s Billy Andrews intercepted Namath and ran it back 25 yards for the touchdown that sealed a 31-21 Browns victory.
And listen to the music on those early broadcasts. The famous MNF music most of us recognize wasn’t there yet. The original theme was “Score,” written by Charles Fox, with that wonderfully funky Hammond-organ sound of 1970. “Heavy Action” didn’t arrive until years later.
What ABC created that night went far beyond football. Monday night became an event. You knew the voices, you knew the personalities, and if you were a kid, you probably tried negotiating just how much of the game you were allowed to stay awake for.
Were you watching Monday Night Football in those early years — and who do you remember most: Cosell, Meredith, Jackson or Gifford?
