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Backstage Country

Hank Williams Jr. Returns To Monday Night Football With FGL, Jason Derulo

Are you ready for some football? For the first time since 2011, ESPN will kick off Monday Night Football with Hank Williams Jr. leading a show open crafted around his classic hit…

NASHVILLE, TN – JUNE 10: Singer-songwriter Hank Williams Jr. performs onstage during 2016 CMA Festival – Day 2 at Nissan Stadium on June 10, 2016 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)

Rick Diamond/Getty Images

Are you ready for some football?

For the first time since 2011, ESPN will kick off Monday Night Football with Hank Williams Jr. leading a show open crafted around his classic hit "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight." And Florida Georgia Line and pop star Jason Derulo are joining Bocephus in his big return.

"I never said, 'Are you ready for some football' on stage one time the last five or six years, but I will now," the country icon recently told The Tennessean. "I'm feeling at home and it's a real good thing ... It's kind of like the Nashville Predators playing for the Stanley Cup, it's like 'Wow.'"

Hank was dropped from the show open six years ago after the star made an off-color remark about a golf outing between President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner. "It would be like Hitler playing golf with [Israeli leader] Benjamin Netanyahu," he said during an appearance on Fox News' Fox & Friends at the time. Asked to expand on the comment by the show's hosts, Hank surmised that President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were "the enemy."

As for potential backlash over this return, network VP Stephanie Druley told the newspaper, "I'm sure there'll be some, but I'm not concerned. It was the right time. We discussed it internally and it was just the right time to bring him back."

Teddy McDonald is a fun-lovin' country music fan man living in Nashville, Tennessee.