Mike Greenberg to host ESPN’s ‘Sunday NFL Countdown’ after Sam Ponder layoff

Mike Greenberg will replace Sam Ponder as host of “Sunday NFL Countdown” on ESPN, the network announced Tuesday. Ponder was laid off last week along with the show’s analyst, Robert Griffin III.

Greenberg, 57, is best known for “Mike & Mike,” the hit sports-talk radio show with former NFL player Mike Golic that enjoyed an 18-year run before ending in 2017. Greenberg and Golic were inducted into the National Assn. of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2016 and the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.

As the current host of daily “Get Up” on ESPN and “Greeny” on ESPN Radio, Greenberg is already busy. He also hosts the NFL Draft on ESPN.

Greenberg is also a prolific author. His first book, a self-deprecating account of his life as a sports fan and husband published in 2007, “Why My Wife Thinks I’m an Idiot,” spent five weeks on the New York Times’ Best Sellers List and was nominated for a Quill Award. Three years later, Greenberg and Golic wrote “Mike & Mike’s Rules for Sports and Life,” which reached No. 3 on the New York Times’ Best Sellers List.

He also has published two novels, “All You Could Ask For” and “My Father’s Wives,” and two years ago co-authored a collection of short sports essays, “Got Your Number: The Greatest Sports Legends and the Numbers They Own.”

In his new gig on Sunday mornings, Greenberg will be joined by NFL insider Adam Schefter and former players Randy Moss, Tedy Bruschi, Rex Ryan and Alex Smith. Reporting on-site from games will be Jeff Darlington, Dan Graziano, Kimberley A. Martin, Sal Paolantonio and Lindsey Thiry.

The layoffs of Ponder and Griffen were characterized as a business move by a person with knowledge of the situation not authorized to speak on the record. Both will receive what they are owed on their contracts and will be paid before this fiscal year ends in September. Griffin had two years remaining on his contract, while Ponder had one year left on her deal. Both had seven-figure yearly salaries.

“This was no different than the other talent layoffs, a straight financial business decision,” the person with knowledge of the cuts said.

Former longtime ESPN sideline reporter Michele Tafoya and others speculated that Ponder was let go at least in part because she expressed her opinion that transgender women should not play sports against other females. In 2023 Ponder tweeted: “Call me whatever names you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that it is inherently unfair for biological males to compete in female sports. It’s literally the reason they were separate in the first place, and the reason we need Title IX.”

However, Tafoya acknowledged in an interview on Fox News that making a splash hire to replace Ponder would justify the change three weeks before the NFL season. “I don’t know why they would do this so close to the season and bring so much attention,” she said, “unless they want to bring in the next host and give that host a lot of attention.”

Greenberg is clearly a next host worthy of attention. “Sunday NFL Countdown” will open its 40th season on Sept. 8 and conclude Super Bowl Sunday in New Orleans on Feb. 9. The now three-hour pregame show, originally named NFL GameDay, debuted in 1985.