ESPN star Pat McAfee has officially chimed in on all the drama involving Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.
Roughly a month ago, ESPN signed Buck to a six-year extension worth around $108 million. Even though he’s been broadcast partners with Aikman for 25 years, the Hall of Famer has not yet received a new deal.
According to Ryan Glasspiegel of Front Office Sports, Buck and Aikman had an argument regarding their contract situations prior to Monday night’s Bills-Rams game.
“On Monday night, before the Rams took on the Bills at SoFi Stadium, the site of this season’s Super Bowl, Buck “broke the ice” on this unspoken tension, and he and Aikman had an argument, a source said. It ultimately de-escalated, and the two had a broadcast in which viewers never would have been able to decipher that something was amiss,” Glasspiegel wrote.
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Could McAfee replace Aikman?
As if the situation wasn’t already interesting enough, Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports mentioned McAfee as a potential replacement for Aikman.
“No network has experimented more with NFL games than ESPN,” McCarthy wrote. “Who can forget ESPN casting Pardon the Interruption co-host Tony Kornheiser as a color commentator along with play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico and Joe Theismann in 2006? The snarky Kornheiser only lasted three seasons before bowing out due to his fear of flying. Then ESPN put poor Booger McFarland on a motorized cart 10 feet above the game action in 2018. The “BoogerMobile” only lasted one season before it was mercifully put out to pasture. But ESPN continued to experiment until it finally struck gold by luring Aikman and Buck in 2022.”
During this Thursday’s episode of “The Pat McAfee Show,” ESPN’s charismatic personality addressed all the rumors.
“I would like to go on the record and say there have been zero conversations about it. There’s ‘Monday Night Football’ contract business happening in a very public way, and we’re big fans of Joe and Troy and the ‘Monday Night Football’ operation,” McAfee said. “There have been efforts to say I am trying to get into the ‘Monday Night Football’ booth as a color commentator or that ESPN is trying to put me in the ‘Monday Night Football’ booth as a color commentator. … I am not supposed to be a color commentator for football. I tried it a couple of times – I hated it, I got bored.”
McAfee later posted this statement on social media: “I’m not supposed to be in a football booth and there’s never been a conversation about me being in the Monday Night Football booth.”
There you have it, NFL fans, McAfee won’t be replacing Aikman on “Monday Night Football.”
Could this open the door for Tony Romo or Greg Olsen to join the “Monday Night Football” crew? We’ll find out in the coming months.
