ESPN Drops Robert Griffin III, Sam Ponder Ahead of Football Season

Dave Nemetz

15 August 2024 at 6:23 pm·1-min read

ESPN is making a few cuts to its football roster: NFL analyst Robert Griffin III and host Sam Ponder have been let go by the network, The Athletic reports. The cuts were reportedly “made for financial reasons.”

Griffin, a former NFL quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy in college, had been with ESPN since 2021, appearing on the NFL pregame show Monday Night Countdown and as an analyst during college football games as well. Earlier this year, though, ESPN hired former player Jason Kelce to take Griffin’s spot on the Monday Night Countdown crew.

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Ponder had been with ESPN for more than a decade, most recently serving as the host of the network’s Sunday morning NFL pregame show Sunday NFL Countdown. In years past, Ponder worked as a college football sideline reporter and host for ESPN as well. There’s no word yet on who will replace Ponder as host of Sunday NFL Countdown, with the NFL season kicking off in just three weeks.

The cuts come about a year after ESPN dropped more than a dozen prominent on-air personalities, including NBA analysts Jeff Van Gundy and Jalen Rose and NFL commentators Steve Young and Matt Hasselbeck, in a cost-cutting move. Longtime SportsCenter anchor John Anderson also retired in June after more than two decades with the network.

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