Gruden, the new Korn-holio

A story on ESPN.com used 742 perfectly good words to explain in a story what maybe a half dozen would have done just fine:

"Monday Night Football": Gruden in, Kornheiser out.

You need more of an explanation, right? That's part of this media game. There must be something sinster going on here, right? We need to know who pissed off whom.

The ESPN story (linked here) -- consider the source -- says it was a very amicable transation for Jon Gruden, the former Raiders and Bucs coach currently out of work, but recently used by the NFL Network on its draft coverage, to take the seat next to Mike Tirico and Ron Jaworski from Tony Kornheiser, the Washington Post columnist (still?) who does better at arguing stuff with Mike Wilbon on "PTI" than throwing out one liners that cause him to have to muster up an apology occasionally.

Plus, he hates to fly. Who doesn't? It's that fear of losing your shoes through security. What person Kornheiser's age wants to take his shoes off in an airport on a weekly basis?

Tony of the Korn was no Dennis Miller. He never tried to be. In fact, he was better. But still ...

On my iGoogle.com homepage, the ESPN app has this Gruden-Kornheiser thing as the top story of the day. NFL.com has it No. 2, behind T.O.'s arrival in Buffalo. Somehow it beat a sourced story that Brett Favre needs shoulder surgery. This is an even bigger story for ESPN -- and Gruden -- since "MNF" has Minnesota (Favre's new prospective employers) facing Green Bay (Farve's one-time employer) at the Humphrey Airplane Hanger in Minneapolis in Week 4. And that stuff about an Eagles coach having to leave because of cancer ... sorry, not big enough.

(By the way, Suzie Kolber on ESPN's "NFL Live" looks pretty spry these days for having recently dropped a kid).

Watch "PTI" for more manufactured reaction. Maybe by then, John Madden will have come out of retirement and taken Gruden's seat. Oh, right, he hates to fly, too. But Favre may be back ...