Former ESPN reporter Andrea Kremer, who now works the sidelines for NBC’s Sunday night package, has some choice words for her former employer in the wake of the decision to relieve Michele Tafoya and Suzy Kolber of their sideline-reporting duties.

Said Kremer to Michael Hiestand of USA Today:  “They were doing the role that ESPN asked them to do — more feature-ish stuff — and they were fired for it?  If you don’t like them in that role, change their role.  Don’t humiliate them like that.  The way [ESPN] handled it was terrible, just disrespectful. . . .  They treated two professionals in a completely non-professional way.”

We’ve routinely criticized Tafoya and Kolber for not actually engaging in any in-game sideline reporting, but in merely talking from the sidelines during the game about things that could have been reported before kickoff.  If they were doing this at the direct behest of management, then the reporters aren’t to blame.

Kremer also said that she is “offended” by the move because “it sets back women” who work as sideline reporters at NFL games:  “[N]o one accused the four of us for being on television for our looks or figures. . . .  This isn’t five years ago, with eye candy on the sidelines.  We established ourselves as reporters, professionals.  Now, you’ve completely minimized that.  These women don’t have to prove themselves anymore.”

Fred Gaudelli, who produces the Sunday night broadcast and who previously produced MNF for ABC, told Hiestand that the latest move is another example of ESPN’s “mismanagement” of the longest-running prime-time sports series in television.   “I just don’t think the people there making these decisions know how a live event gets put on television.  They know studio shows.  But the people making the decisions just don’t understand live events.  They’re not equipped to make these decisions.  If they left things to [producer] Jay Rothman, they’d be better off.”

As to the ongoing debate regarding the role of Tony Kornheiser in the booth, Gaudelli said, “If you ranked MNF’s five announcers on ability, Kolber and Tafoya would be in the top three. . . .  But ESPN has a big bet on Kornheiser.”

While we’ve heard that friction between Kornheiser and Kolber might have contributed to the move, the relationship between Kornheiser and Tafoya is strong.  Our old pal Paul Charchian tells us that Kornheiser and Tafoya once made a joint appearance on Charch’s KFAN radio show, and they said that they keep an open phone line to each other while watching American Idol.

We wonder whether they did so again last night.