From the NY Post’s mini-Mushnick, Andrew Marchand :

With Al Michaels’ future on Monday Night Football in doubt, ESPN is strongly considering putting talk show host/columnist Tony Kornheiser on its telecast next year, The Post has learned.

While ESPN is expected to decide after the Super Bowl if it will force Michaels to honor the eight-year $32 million contract he signed this summer, sources say the network has devised a Plan B around Kornheiser.

If the network allows Michaels out of his contract then the new team is expected to be led by Mike Tirico. Tirico will be joined by Joe Theismann and Kornheiser, if Kornheiser agrees to ESPN’s offer that is believed to be for around $1 million.

The addition of Kornheiser, who writes for the Washington Post, would be a radical move in the same vein as when Dennis Miller was named to the Monday Night booth.

ESPN executives, according to a source with knowledge of the situation, recently met with Kornheiser about accepting the role. If Kornheiser takes the offer then he is expected to continue to co-host Pardon the Interruption.

Though Kornheiser would bring a little more sports journalism credibility (though substantially less hair) to the role than Miller did, given how well the previous experiment worked out, this is a curious choice. That said, there is something funny about the notion that any number of Disney/ABC/ESPN on-air personalities could be replaced at a moment’s notice by the company bringing Kornheiser in on the relative cheap.

And with that in mind, is Jamie Sale’s future 2nd husband ready to go to Iraq?

In an unrelated and untimely note, who amongst us hasn’t wanted to see portraits of Tony, Michael Wilbon and Stat Boy in Pumpkin form?