If you’re familiar with Jimmy Johnson’s career arc, you know that few people in history have been more openly grateful to no longer be coaching. Johnson said as much publicly ever since leaving the profession back in 1999. My man wanted more time to fish, to hang out in the Florida Keys, and to pretend he enjoys being with his wife and children. So what does a thinking Hall of Famer do when he wants to chill, but also doesn’t mind making a few million per year on the side? You guessed it: He becomes a replacement-level yapper on television, until he doesn’t feel like doing it anymore.
“I’ve been thinking about it for the last four or five years and I’ve decided to retire from Fox. I’m going to miss it. I’m going to miss all the guys,” he said, while announcing his retirement on Colin Cowherd's show.
Yes, Jimmy Johnson is leaving Fox NFL Sunday after 31 years of sitting behind a desk and pretending that Terry Bradshaw’s jokes are funny. America weeps.
Now, you might be asking yourself, Hey man, if an 81-year-old broadcaster says that he’s been thinking about quitting his barely-show TV job for four or five years, wouldn’t that have affected the quality of his work during that extended period? Good question. The answer there is that it’s the Fox pregame show! No one who works on that show has EVER done good work! I bet you forgot that Jimmy was still on it before I delivered this news to you! Do you know what my favorite memory of the Fox pregame show is? Trick question, I don’t have one! No one does, because it’s a piece of shit! I won’t even get angry emails for saying so! PIECE. OF. SHIT.
I’d like to think that Johnson’s retirement will spur Fox to overhaul its studio roster entirely. After all, the people in charge of CBS’ The NFL Today spent last offseason cleaning out dust bunnies like Boomer Esiason and Phil Simms in an attempt to makes its studio crew younger, even visibly awake. Do I watch that show, with all of its fresh-faced stars like … Matt Ryan? Fuck no. I’d rather watch my dog getting punched. But hey, at least CBS is trying, and you’d hope that might pressure Fox to do likewise.
You’d hope wrong. Fox's pregame show has topped the ratings since its inception, so as far as their producers are concerned, everything about their on-air product is hunky-dory. Charissa Thompson and Erin Andrews have both already left the network, but no one considers either of those two women germane to the greater problem of Fox putting a bunch of old shitheads with even older jokes on the air every weekend. Even if I skip watching the pregame shows every Sunday (and I do), I still find myself bombarded all game long with halftime sketches that Fox picked out of Bruce Vilanch’s wastepaper basket, followed by tacky contest promos featuring Bradshaw with a raw chicken wing stuck up his nostril. The entire Fox game presentation is somehow both old AND obnoxious, and losing Jimmy Johnson from the set does nothing to change it.
I could waste bandwidth here speculating over which McCourty To Be Named Later will take Johnson’s seat, but they’ll inevitably find some airless pud who can look determinedly into the camera and tell the audience, "I believe the Chiefs have real questions they need to answer about their running game," before laughing at Bradshaw for mispronouncing Tua Tagovailoa’s name for the 984th straight time. This country is in the process of really letting itself go, and Fox NFL Sunday is the pregame show it so richly deserves. I just wish there was something, anything, out there for those of us who know better. Enjoy your retirement, Jimmy. Don’t be shocked if it’s more strenuous than what you were already doing.
