Monday Night Football Trivia
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50 free Monday Night Football trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Monday Night Football debuted on ABC in September 1970 with Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell and Don Meredith in a three-man booth nobody had tried before. These Monday Night Football trivia questions cover the Cosell years, Hank Williams Jr. and Heavy Action, Theismann's leg, the Monday Night Miracle, the move to ESPN, Buck and Aikman and the Manningcast. Every answer is sourced, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which billionaire's network rivalled ABC for NFL Monday games?
Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes bankrolled the Hughes Sports Network. ABC, the lowest-rated of the three big networks, had been as wary of Monday football as its rivals, but signed once the league turned to Hughes.
Q 02Which team hosted and won the first MNF game, 31–21 over the Jets?
Cleveland Browns
Cleveland Browns fans watched the start of a 35-year run on ABC. When the network's last Monday game came round in 2005, the Jets were on the field again and lost by the very same score, 31–21.
Q 03Which NFL commissioner pushed for a weekly prime-time game in the 1960s?
Pete Rozelle
Pete Rozelle tried Friday nights first, in 1964, and was beaten back by fears that high school football crowds would suffer. He then tested Mondays with a single CBS game in 1966 and again in 1967.
Q 04Which television executive built Monday Night Football as an entertainment 'spectacle'?
Roone Arledge
Roone Arledge doubled the usual number of cameras, filled the screen with graphics and put a third voice in the booth. He had been reshaping ABC's college football coverage in the same way since 1960.
Q 05Which Chiefs quarterback beat John Elway's Broncos on MNF in 1994 with a 75-yard touchdown drive in the dying seconds?
Joe Montana
Joe Montana, in the last season of his career, got the ball back with 89 seconds left after an Elway touchdown. He took Kansas City 75 yards to score with eight seconds to spare and win 31–28.
Q 06Who was the original MNF play-by-play announcer in 1970?
Keith Jackson
Keith Jackson lasted a single season before ABC moved him aside for its first choice. He went back to college football and spent the next three decades as the best-known voice in that sport.
Q 07Which Dodgers broadcaster did ABC try to hire for Monday Night Football in 1970, only to find him tied to his contract?
Vin Scully
Vin Scully was ABC's second target, after Curt Gowdy of NBC proved just as hard to prise loose. He stayed with the Dodgers and was still calling their games in 2016, his 67th year in the job.
Q 08Which former Cowboys quarterback was one of the three original Monday Night Football announcers in 1970?
Don Meredith
Don Meredith got the seat on a rival's recommendation: ABC's first choice was tied to CBS and suggested the newly retired Cowboy instead. His folksy drawl made him the perfect foil for the pompous Howard Cosell.
Q 09Which line did an MNF announcer sing once a game was decided?
Turn out the lights, the party's over
"Turn out the lights, the party's over" opens a Willie Nelson song that had been only a minor country hit in 1967. Hearing it crooned on Monday nights whenever a lead looked safe made it famous.
Q 10Which quarterback threw four first-half touchdowns on MNF in December 2003, a day after his father's sudden death?
Brett Favre
Brett Favre chose to play for Green Bay the night after his father, Irvin, died of a heart attack. He passed for 399 yards in a 41–7 win over the Oakland Raiders.
Q 11Which team trailed by 21 points with under four minutes left on MNF in 2003, then won in overtime?
Indianapolis Colts
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning led the drive that tied the game against Tampa Bay with 35 seconds left. In overtime the winning field goal was deflected at the line, hit the upright and still dropped through.
Q 12Frank Gifford played his whole 12-season NFL career for which team?
New York Giants
New York Giants fans thought his career was over in 1960, when a severe head injury led him to retire. He came back in 1962 at a new position, flanker, and became a star all over again.
Q 13Howard Cosell was born with which surname?
Cohen
Q 21Fred Williamson, dropped by MNF before the 1974 season began, was known by which nickname?
The Hammer
The Hammer got the name for the brutal hits he handed out as a defensive back in the 1960s. He joked that ABC had hired him to "bring some color to the booth", then lost the job after a few pre-season games.
Q 22Which analyst joined the booth in 1974 and joked that a bald Raider had attended 'the University of Mars'?
Alex Karras
Alex Karras was reacting to a sideline shot of lineman Otis Sistrunk's shaved head. Sistrunk had in fact played no college football at all, going straight from high school into the Marines.
Q 23Which newly retired quarterback began working games with Cosell and Gifford in 1979?
Fran Tarkenton
Cohen was his family's name when he was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The man who became the voice of New York sport was a Southerner by birth, though he grew up in Brooklyn.
Q 14What was Howard Cosell's profession before he became a full-time broadcaster?
Lawyer
Lawyer: he had his own practice in Manhattan when ABC radio gave him a Saturday morning show in 1953. Within three years he had given up the law to broadcast full time.
Q 15Which cartoon series supplied the animated world for an alternate telecast of a Monday night game in December 2024?
The Simpsons
The Simpsons Funday Football used the league's player-tracking data to redraw the live game in Springfield, with the show's own voice actors. ESPN had done the same with Toy Story characters a year earlier.
Q 16Howard Cosell rose to prominence in the 1960s covering which boxer?
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali and Cosell rose together. Cosell was one of the first broadcasters to use the champion's new name, and he stood by him when Ali refused to be drafted during the Vietnam War.
Q 17Which sponsor's chairman asked ABC to remove Cosell from the booth in 1970?
Ford
Ford was the show's main sponsor, and its chairman, Henry Ford II, wanted Cosell taken off the air. ABC refused, and Ford changed his mind once the first ratings came in.
Q 18Which Cowboys running back set an NFL record that can only be tied with a 99-yard touchdown run on a Monday night?
Tony Dorsett
Tony Dorsett broke loose against Minnesota in the last regular-season game of 1982. His record stood alone for 36 years, until Derrick Henry ran 99 yards for Tennessee in 2018.
Q 19Which former Beatle was interviewed by Cosell in the booth in December 1974?
John Lennon
John Lennon chatted with Cosell at half-time. Six years later, almost to the day, it was Cosell who interrupted another Monday night game to tell the country that Lennon had been shot dead in New York.
Q 20Which governor was interviewed on MNF in December 1974 on the same night as a former Beatle?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan was in his last weeks as Governor of California. Off camera, as the game went on, he sat with the visiting Beatle and talked him through the rules of American football.
Fran Tarkenton was hired to plug a gap in a contract. The NFL season had grown to 16 games, but the booth's regular analyst was signed for only 14, so someone had to cover the rest.
Q 24Which Hall of Fame quarterback was hired as an MNF analyst for the 1985 season?
Joe Namath
Joe Namath made his debut at the Hall of Fame Game, on the very weekend he was inducted there himself. One season later ABC let him go.
Q 25Which Giants linebacker's tackle ended Joe Theismann's career on MNF in 1985?
Lawrence Taylor
Lawrence Taylor knew at once how bad it was. He jumped up and waved frantically to the sideline for medical help, while viewers were shown the broken leg again in slow motion.
Q 26Which team handed the 1985 Chicago Bears their only defeat, on a Monday night in December?
Miami Dolphins
Miami Dolphins pride was at stake: the club's 1972 team had gone a whole season unbeaten, and Chicago arrived at 12–0. Miami won 38–24 in front of the biggest audience the show had ever drawn.
Q 27Which announcer took over Monday Night Football play-by-play in 1986 and stayed for the rest of its ABC run?
Al Michaels
Al Michaels was already famous for "Do you believe in miracles?", his call of the 1980 Olympic ice hockey upset. When ABC gave up Monday nights after 2005, he moved to NBC's new Sunday night games.
Q 28Which former Cardinals lineman joined the booth in 1987 to restore the three-man format?
Dan Dierdorf
Dan Dierdorf was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1996, while he was still in the booth. He left after the 1998 season for CBS, the network where his television career had begun.
Q 29Which British library instrumental was first heard on Monday Night Football in 1975?
Heavy Action
Heavy Action was written by the British bandleader Johnny Pearson as a stock library track. It was already the theme of a BBC sports show, Superstars, when ABC picked it up, and its opening fanfare came to mean football.
Q 30Which Hank Williams Jr. hit became MNF's opening song?
All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight
All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight was a 1984 hit that he rewrote with the shout "Are you ready for some football?". It opened the show from 1989 until ESPN dropped it in 2011, and came back in 2017.