The three-man booth was originally meant to convey that the event was so special that extra commentary was needed. It was also a way to find a role for Cosell who was ill-cast as either play-by-play or color commentary. ABC, perhaps unintentionally, came up with great chemistry between the Jewish East-Coast lawyer Cosell and the aw-shucks Texas jock Don Meredith. What started out as a simple clash of cultures became something of a pretend fued that kept the broadcast entertaining on nights when the game itself didn't hold the audience.
But once Meredith left (he was promised he could be a serious actor for NBC), MNF never again had the sort of dynamics in the booth that once made it a phenomenom. They definitely tried to be provocative (Joe Namath, OJ Simpson, Alex Karras, ....all the way up to Dennis Miller) but they could never put a twosome or a threesome in the booth that delivered what they had in the early 1970s. FWIW, I consider SNF to now be the heir to MNF because it is the prime time major-network game with the top matchups, not the cable broadcast that gets the second-tier matchups.
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