If there’s such thing as an ESPN expert it’s James Andrew Miller, who co-authored the excellent and definitive history of the network — Those Guys Have All The Fun: Inside The World of ESPN — with Tom Shales. During a back-and-forth Twitter debate this week discussing who’s the highest paid talent at the network, Miller weighed in with his answer:

That might not have been my first guess, or a lot of other people’s, but it makes perfect sense. Gruden is the star of ESPN’s biggest property in Monday Night Football. Biggest show equals biggest money and $6.5 million is big, big money.

Is the Super Bowl-winning coach worth that reported salary though? It’s such a nebulous question. If that’s what he wants and that’s what ESPN decides to pay him, then of course he is. Anyway, there’s something to be said for stability in a booth and in the late-1990s and 2000s there was more turnover in the MNF crew than on the Redskins quarterback depth chart. While it might make for some good press when the drama of who comes next is playing out; at the end of it all, everyone is hoping to find that Madden and Summerall, a team that can last for decades without drama. If ESPN thinks it has theirs in Mike Tirico and Gruden, then the ex-coach is worth every penny.

This also answers the lingering question about why Gruden, who is no longer a young gun at age 52 but is assumed to be a guy who misses the adrenaline rush of everything NFL, has stuck it out in the booth for seven seasons and is under contract for six more. Six-point-five million is a lot of money, a total reportedly only surpassed by six NFL coaches: Pete Carroll ($8M), Sean Payton ($8M), Bill Belichick ($7.5M), Andy Reid ($7.5M), John Harbaugh ($7M) and Tom Coughlin ($7M).

While Gruden’s contract, which is not made public, almost certainly contains out clauses should he ever get the coaching bug again, what’s not to love about life behind the microphone? He still gets to watch film and break down players, he’s still a huge part of the sport he loves and he can do it all without the unknowable stress of being an NFL head coach.

That doesn’t mean he won’t come back eventually though. Joe Gibbs got the itch at age 63 after being out of the game for 11 seasons. Dick Vermeil was 60 and seemingly happy in the television booth when he returned to coach the St. Louis Rams in 1997 after 15 years away from the sidelines. Gruden may decide to do that one day too.

Or maybe he’ll be like John Madden or Bill Cowher (for now) and simply love the stress-free life of an analyst. Though Gruden does plenty of work for ESPN outside MNF, his No. 1 gig basically runs four-months. And unlike an NFL job, said gig is presumably Gruden’s for as long as he wants it. He can do what he wants during the week, fly to sites before the games, study up and be home in time for Tuesday breakfast. In a league where players, coaches, general managers and executives come and go every year, the only position with better job security would presumably be the commissioner.

As ESPN has shown with the exits of high-priced talents such as Colin Cowherd, Dan Patrick, Keith Olbermann and Bill Simmons, among others, there’s a certain type of talent that the network values more than others, and ex-coaches with a penchant for indecipherable football jargon and a hard Sandusky accent, who give the No. 1 show in cable a distinct identity, is at the top.

ESPN declined to comment on Miller’s report.