Fans have noticed over the past couple of years that Monday Night Football on ESPN has featured some less-than-stellar matchups.

Whether that was coincidence or something more sinister being done by the NFL, it took its toll on former MNF announcer Sean McDonough.

McDonough told WEEI.com that he wasn’t having much fun calling the games, explaining why he will be going back to college football this fall:

“I say that after a lot of reflection and mostly a lot of belief that, ultimately, what is the most important thing in life is to be happy,” McDonough said. “As much as it was a great honor to be the voice of ‘Monday Night Football’ –– and you guys know me well enough, and certainly a lot of my friends and family do –– it wasn’t a tremendous amount of fun the last two years. When I took my ego out of it, when the conversation about a reboot of MNF came up, when I took the ego part of it out, and rationalized it, I really could be fine with  not being the voice of MNF, then it became easy. I love college football. For me, it’s more fun, and that’s a personal taste.”

McDonough added that, in addition to calling lackluster games, he felt overshadowed by Jon Gruden:

“If you go back and look at the schedule, generally we got one of the worst NFL games each week. You’re trying to make something sound interesting and exciting that isn’t,” he explained. “For me, part of it was just the way the booth was set up the last two years. It was really geared around Jon Gruden. That’s not unusual, TV really is an analyst-driven medium. Jon had a particular set of skills that he did really well, and foremost among them was analyzing the play, breaking down the play, ‘here’s why they ran that play, here’s why it worked, here’s what this guy did or didn’t do.’ It was really football heavy, X and O heavy, and I think most play-by-play guys, all play-by-play guys, would’ve felt like a bit of a bystander.”

The MNF booth will be completely different next year with Gruden returning to the sidelines to coach the Oakland Raiders. McDonough will be replaced by Joe Tessitore.