Jason Witten on Monday Night Football criticism: 'It sucked going through it'

Jason Witten’s one year in the "Monday Night Football" booth was far from a success. The now un-retired Cowboys tight end was unable to replicate Tony Romo’s instant success in the booth, and his struggles continued through the season and into the Pro Bowl.

While Witten says Twitter’s criticism didn’t influence his decision to return to the NFL, he did acknowledge that the Internet beating was tough to deal with at times.

Witten joined Ryen Russillo’s "Dual Threat" podcast this week and looked back at his experience in the "Monday Night Football" booth. From Witten’s perspective, he felt that the “narrative” of his struggles meant that his broadcasting success was going to be a long-term effort.

Witten said: “Well, I think first off. Nobody’s immune to it, regardless of how much mental toughness you have. That was one of the things I kind of prided myself on as a player 15 years. I could handle the big stage. … Certainly, I took a beating. I’m aware of it. To say, ‘Hey, you didn’t pay attention to it.’ Bull-(expletive).

“Everybody’s aware, and if you’re not, you’re lying to me. … The toughest part was you finished “I’d check my texts and I’d found out I was sick or something, or somebody died in my family. ‘Hey, praying for you’, ‘Keep your head up.’ ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I’m like, ‘My gosh, it wasn’t that bad.’ I said ‘pull a rabbit out of his head’ instead of ‘rabbit out of his hat’! You guys knew what I meant, right? I screwed up, but it wasn’t the end of the world in my opinion.”

He continued, noting his improvement once Booger McFarland left the Booger-Mobile and joined the booth: “I wasn’t immune to it. It sucked going through it at times. Once the narrative formed, I knew that it was going to be a long-game approach. I thought as the season unfolded, when Boog moved up to the booth, I thought we had two or three really good games and we were starting to kind of hit our stride. I didn’t make this decision off of the noise or the criticism. It was really just, ‘I want to play.’ The scoreboard matters, and I want to be a part of that.”

Yet, Witten didn’t necessarily stop making mistakes even at the end of the season. He said things like Cam Newton was great at the “run after catch.” In the Pro Bowl, he said that Colts tight end Eric Ebron was Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ guy all year.

And then, he broke the trophy.

Narrative aside, Witten was consistently bad, and NFL fans simply pointed that out.

Follow For the Win's Andrew Joseph on Twitter @AndyJ0seph.

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