After two seasons of commentary for Monday Night Football, Dennis Miller was fired on Thursday, Feb. 28.

This is his requiem rant.

Dictionaries will be sought. Metaphors will be misunderstood or not understood at all.

To fully grasp the importance of what follows, one needs to wiggle one’s head slightly and have an adept knowledge of world history since, say, Jesus Christ.

Dennis would have wanted it this way.

Babe.

Now I don’t want to go off on a rant here, but Miller has better lines than a Dallas Cowboys cocaine party.

Sure, some of them sound so esoteric it seems that Miller is a graduate of the George Will/William F. Buckley School of Journalism.

But these lines are also stop-or-I’ll-pee-my-pants-like-a-frightened-5-year-old-after-a-Big-Gulp funny too.

Miller on elections: “Move election day to April 15 . See if any of these duplicitous sons of bitches would try to get away with their crap if we paid their salaries on the same day as we voted for them.”

Miller on smoking: “If you’re saying you didn’t know cigarettes were bad for you, you’re lying through that hole in your trachea.”

Miller on the media: “The only thing stiffer than Stone Phillips is Richard Simmons watching him.”

This sort of banter will not stand on network television.

Especially if Disney owns your network.

Can you imagine the ABC brass during Miller’s hiring process?

I would have given away a free pass to the International Supermodel Massage Contest to sit in on those meetings.

ABC exec: Now Dennis, if we hire you, we need you to behave.

Miller: Sure (head shaking to and fro) I’ll be more submissive on the air than Boy George at an S&M camp.

ABC exec: Dennis!

Miller: Right. Sorry babe.

So ABC reigned him in. They were tighter than Jake Barnes drinking with the bulls of Pamplona while looking for Brett.

His wise-ass taken away, Miller relied on his wisdom.

Indeed, Rece Davis of ESPN said Miller might be the only football analyst to know the difference between Bert Emmanuel and Immanuel Kant.

It fit on Monday night about as well as Wranglers fit Pavarotti.

I mean, a funny man has his funny taken from him so he turns to his surprisingly expansive wealth of academia, but does so in a medium and sport that is as friendly to it as New Yorkers are to John Rocker.

And need I remind you he is trying this for the very first time in his life?

It took the biggest cojones this side of Harry Truman for then-producer Don Ohlmeyer to hire Miller.

But Miller needed big ones to accept too.

Which brings us to his courage, because Miller needed this job like Strom Thurmond needs a birthday.

He’s written four books, won five Emmys for his HBO show “Dennis Miller Live” and established the Saturday Night Live standard that is “Weekend Update.”

Miller had a cushier gig than a 10-year back-up punter.

He risked it all to entertain a national audience of former Mouseketeers and beer chuggers.

In his first exhibition games, he brought up the nobility former players have.

This is a dirty little secret of professional football: how crippling the game is on the body.

Johnny Unitas has no use for the right hand he once threw touchdowns with.

Former Raider offensive lineman Curt Marsh would like to use his right foot, but it’s been amputated.

The Raiders’ team physician reportedly misdiagnosed a broken talus bone.

Miller never meant to be any sort of muckraker, but his words rang true – though that truth often rang on a metaphysical level.

This was the downfall of Miller.

After his first season of arcane jokes failed about as many times as Scott Weiland in rehab, Miller turned to analyzing the games.

That’s what Dan Fouts was for.

And Melissa Stark.

And to a very small degree, Eric Dickerson.

When ABC fired Miller and his acerbic tongue, they replaced it with John Madden’s – a tongue less acerbic than ignorant.

And possibly drunk.

I mean, Madden’s shtick of “Boom” and “Bang” is about as dated as Crystal Pepsi.

That’s what makes Miller’s firing as depressing as Kurt Cobain talking about the works of Graham Greene: Sportscasting returns to the drone and footballese of ex-jocks.

Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Paul Kix is a junior in journalism and mass communications from Hubbard. He is the senior sports reporter for the Daily and normally appears on the sports page.