This year, the second game of the NFL's annual "Monday Night Football" doubleheader will feature a bit of history. 

ESPN has assigned Beth Mowins to the play-by-play broadcast of the Chargers-Broncos game. Mowins will be the first woman to handle play-by-play duties for a regular-season NFL game in 30 years. Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated first reported the news. The game's analyst will be former Jets and Bills coach Rex Ryan.

"This is an amazing opportunity and I look forward to working with Rex and our entire ESPN team," Mowins said in an ESPN news release. "As lifelong fans of the NFL 'Monday Night Football' franchise, we want to bring the same passion to the broadcast as our predecessors have all done."  

The last woman to call a televised game was Gayle Sierens, on the Dec. 27, 1987, clash between the Seahawks and Chiefs. Per SI, then-NBC Sports executive producer Mike Weisman offered Sierens six more games for the following season but the local affiliate she worked for did not want her to miss work to call NFL games, so she never did so again. 

Now, Mowins will get a shot. Mowins has handled play-by-play broadcasts for Raiders preseason games as well as many college football games over the last few years. 

"Beth Mowins has excelled as play by play announcer for the Raiders' preseason football, demonstrating unmatched professionalism, work ethic and passion for her craft," Vittorio De Bartolo, the team official who recruited Mowins for the Oakland broadcasting job told SI. "As executive producer I appreciated Beth's enthusiasm for studying and preparing for each game. She took advantage of every opportunity during training camp to watch practice and chat with Raiders players, coaches and personnel in the days leading up to kickoff, all of which helped make for a better Raiders Preseason broadcast.

"I am more than confident Beth can call an NFL game for a national audience. Her resume and body of work speaks for itself in addition to the seamless transition she made from the college game to the NFL game."

ESPN president John Skipper was asked last year why a woman had not yet called play-by-play on TV and responded by saying, "I think we will get there. We are committed to it. Look, we have women calling NBA games, we have women calling college football games, and we look for opportunities to put women in the booth. . . There is no reason not to do it now. It is one of these things where people are making progress and that would be seen as there is no limit."