Jason Witten isn't Tony Romo. In the wake of the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback becoming an overnight sensation in his debut season as an NFL announcer, though, “Monday Night Football” attempted to capitalize on Romo's success by hiring Witten, in his first year of retirement, to replace Jon Gruden as the color analyst for football's most watched game of the week.

Needless to say, it didn't go well. Viewers across the globe weren't the only ones irked by Witten's struggles, though. In an appearance on Dual Threat With Ryen Russillo, Dallas' beloved tight end, who ended his retirement earlier this offseason, shed light on the toll such widespread criticism of his time in the announcing booth took on his psyche.

“I wasn’t immune to it,” Witten said of critiques of his performance, per 247 Sports' Patrik Walker. “It sucked going through it, at times. Once the narrative formed, I knew it was going to be a long-game approach.”

Witten received especially notable flak when he said during a September broadcast that the league “went a little bit to the left wing” with new rules meant to protect the quarterback. Even more routine slips of the tongue, however,, led to backlash from not just fans, but his family and friends.

“I’d check my texts and [it's like] I’d found out I was sick, or somebody died in my family,” he said. “‘Hey, praying for you'. ‘Keep your head up!'. I’m like my gosh, it wasn’t that bad!

“I said ‘pull a rabbit out of his head' instead of ‘rabbit out of his hat'! You guys knew what I meant, right? I screwed up, but it wasn’t the end of the world in my opinion. I wasn’t immune to it.

“It sucked going through it at times.”

Witten, 36, signed a one-year, $4.5 million deal to return to the Cowboys in February.