Earlier, we gave an off-the-cuff critique of Tony Kornheiser’s first appearance on ESPN’s brand-spanking new Monday Night Football. As you can imagine, it was a heavily-scrutinized debut, with just about every major newspaper opining on TK’s entrance to the prime-time television world. Naturally, sports columnists came heavy with the praise – as they should, for if Mr. Tony succeeds, a massive door to endless TV opportunities opens to sportswriters everywhere. And yes, that sound you hear is a cash register.

So we checked in with a prominent face in sports television, who we can’t identify for obvious reasons. The feeling in the TV world is that Tony tanked, and tanked badly. While we’re a mere one game into the preseason, the problems, says our source, are three-fold:

A) “Theismann needs to get over it. It was pretty clear that he didn’t want Tony to succeed. ESPN is promoting Tony as its new star EVERYWHERE, and that’s gotta irk Theismann, who was an NFL star. He reminded you of that at every chance he got last night. How many times did he hang Tony out to dry with silence, which caused Tony’s one-liners to hit the floor with a thud? Tony works on PTI because he’s got Wilbon to cover him. When Tony cracks wise, Wilbon laughs. Theismann needs to laugh or say something. He didn’t have a problem doing it with Paul McGuire, did he? They had back and forth all the time. He didn’t give Tony anything last night.”

B) “Tony needs the camera on him to really work on TV. That’s the beauty of PTI – the camera is on him, and his mannerisms are half of his delivery. They help convey his humor. The cameras are on the field 95% of the time at the game, and all his lines seemed to lack confidence and conviction. He was just … saying stuff. Nothing he said carried weight or was insightful.”

C) “Tony has spent the last 10 years on radio and TV railing about how he doesn’t pay attention to sports, and how he’s in bed at 9 pm. But as a sports personality who is going to be calling a 3-hour game, you better be passionate as hell, because people need to feel it on TV. [Ed - We went back to the source to clarify "passion," and they mentioned three names: Madden, Vitale, and Lee Corso.] It doesn’t seem like Tony has a passion for football. It sure wasn’t there last night. Dennis Miller didn’t have it either. This might be worse than Dennis Miller.”

Again, not only was this a preseason game, but it was a worthless one involving two shitty teams with few intriguing storylines outside of Randy Moss vs. his old team and Randy Moss vs. Aaron Brooks, and those were beaten to death by the end of the first quarter.

Earlier, we linked to a pretty brutal commentary on TK’s performance in the Style section of the Washington Post. It’s a must-read.

“These are not good numbers tonight, are they?” he asked at one point as the passing statistics for Aaron Brooks, the Raiders quarterback, flashed on-screen. Given that Brooks was 0-for-4 passing at the time, the question was either needlessly rhetorical or hopelessly naive.