While the folks at Fox are beginning their football era by trying to inject some entertainment value into NFL broadcasts, the pioneers in that field are marking a milestone.

ABC's "Monday Night Football," which added liberal doses of dazzle to its weekly broadcasts, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this season.Those "MNF" broadcasts were the first in which the announcers often overshadowed the game. Howard Cosell and "Dandy" Don Meredith were bigger stars than many of the players on the field.

And even after a quarter of a century, those Monday night games are still something special in the NFL.

"After nine years with this package, what I'm discovering now is there's a whole generation of people who have grown up watching it, and they are now playing the game," said Al Michaels, who does the play-by-play. "And when we go to a town on a Monday night it's an amazing atmosphere. . . . The town gets up for it.

"There's something about playing a game under the lights when most are played during the day. You can feel it in every city we travel to on a given Monday. And when we walk out on that field before the game to talk to the players . . . you can tell how jazzed they are to play on `Monday Night Football.' "

A quarter of a century later, it's hard to remember the consternation with which "Monday Night Football" was greeted. In those 25 years, it's gone from being attacked as an overly glitzy broadcast that denigrated the game itself to being a part of American culture.

"When `Monday Night Football' came on the air I was a senior in college," said analyst Dan Dierdorf. "So I grew up a fan of this television show, just like hundreds of millions of people in this country. And just the mere thought of being a part of its 25th anniversary is a little mind-boggling for me.

"I see the history and the sense of theater that's always gone with `Monday Night Football.' I'm just overwhelmed to be a part of it."

Frank Gifford, who joined the "MNF" team in its second season (Keith Jackson did the play-by-play the first year) has broadcast nearly 500 games in 24 years - first doing play-by-play, then switching to color commentary. And he sees the fact that ABC does only one game a week as part of what makes the Monday matchup special.

"We bring everything to that one time a week," Gifford said.

(He also pointed out that the current on-camera team of Michaels-Gifford-Dierdorf is the longest-running in "MNF" history - Michaels joined up nine years ago and Dierdorf eight.)

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As to Fox's plans to do something new and different to NFL broadcasts, Gifford is somewhat skeptical.

"Well, they might do something around the game," said Gifford, referring to Fox's plans for a souped-up studio show. "But I find it kind of difficult to change the game."

He noted that a lot of the on-the-air talent and behind-the-scenes guys came over to Fox from CBS.

"I can't imagine it being much different than you've been watching over at CBS. And I can't imagine that's all bad," Gifford said. "They'll do a h--- of a job. But will it be different? I hardly think so."

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