Who Would Watch The Saints On Monday Night Football? Dandy Don Made It Happen

"The show was supposed to be doomed from the start. In the late 1960's executives at all three networks—everyone except ABC's Roone Arledge—believed women would never watch football, and while men might tune in during a tight game between such popular teams as the Cowboys and the Colts, nobody would sit through a blowout. Who would ever watch the New Orleans Saints, a team that had gone 12-29 in its woeful three years of existence? (Playboy Magazine, October 2010.)

It was in the days before ESPN, no network executive, with the exception of Roone Arledge, believed that anyone would watch football on prime-time television.

"Dandy" Don Meredith was part of the triumvirate that would forever change the TV viewing habits of million of Americans.

With his gregarious personality, few knew that Meredith was battling depression during the early days of Monday Night Football after his daughter Heather was born blind, mentally-handicapped and in need of institutionalization.

"Against that, football could not have been less important," wrote his broadcast partner Howard Cosell in the 1973 autobiography "Cosell."

Meredith entered Monday Night Football as a former Dallas Cowboys quarterback with no previous broadcast experience.

During an audition leading up to the 1970 debut of the show, Meredith stood up and announced, "Let's face it fellows, I'm not qualified for this. I don't even know that much about football. I just know the X's and O's that (Tom) Landry taught me."

Cosell, a Brooklyn attorney before turning to sportscasting, persuaded Meredith to reconsider.

"Don, in my opinion you'll be making the biggest mistake of your life if you even think about leaving us," Cosell told him.

"You're going to come out of this a hero. Middle America will love you. Southern Americans will love you. You'll wear the white hat, I'll wear the black hat and you'll have no problems from the very beginning."

Cosell's words proved prophetic.

Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell and "Dandy" Don Meredith broadcast the first Monday Night Football game in 1970 on a sultry Summer night in Cleveland, Ohio.

Twenty weeks later, Don Meredith would win an Emmy and America would be in love with the folksy Southerner "Dandy" Don, while Cosell would be the one suffering depression as the perceived villain of the show resulting from his acerbic, sarcastic style.

It wasn't uncommon for Cosell to receive death threats before the broadcast while Frank Gifford, who replaced Jackson in year two, and "Dandy" Don Meredith basked in the glory of adoring fans.

Cosell would quickly grow to resent Meredith's popularity, viewing him as a lazy jock, while the normally unflappable Keith Jackson once said, "Meredith is all right, if you like bullshit."

There was a lot of ego between what proved to be arguably the most successful broadcast team in NFL history—a trio of pioneers without question.

The biggest surprise was that, despite his initial apprehension, Meredith was relaxed and loose from the start.

During the opening night broadcast, Dandy Don said of the Cleveland Browns wide receiver Fair Hooker, "Isn't Fair Hooker a great name? Fair Hooker—I haven't met one yet."

As it neared midnight Monday night on the East Coast and the Patriots were blowing away the Jets, I half expected the Ghost of Dandy Don to appear and serenade us with his classic, "Turn out the light's, the party's over. All good things must come to an end."

A sad feeling came over me as yet another part of my youth is now gone, never to be reclaimed in this lifetime.

It had been years since Dandy Don's last Monday Night broadcast but at that moment in time, it felt like he hadn't been gone all that long.

My mind wandered back in time to that night in 1972, when the Kansas City Chiefs came to town to play the New Orleans Saints at old Tulane Stadium for Monday Night Football.

The Saints were so bad in those days that the game did not sellout and the TV blackout was not lifted in New Orleans.

I was nine years old and went to bed that night not knowing how the game would turn out, but hoping my dad would wake me up to tell me the Saints had won the game, shocking the country and that Faultless Frank, Humble Howard and Dandy Don were singing the Saints' praises.

Alas, the party's over. All good things must come to an end.

Rest In Peace, Dandy.