Monday Night Countdown had a different presentation before this week’s Packers-Raiders game in Las Vegas as Scott Van Pelt was unable to host because he lost his voice. The next person up for ESPN was actually a pairing – Michelle Beisner-Buck and husband Joe Buck shared pregame hosting duties before Buck went up to the broadcast booth with Troy Aikman.
Both members of the couple have previous hosting experience, Buck actually anchored the NFL on Fox pregame show for a short time during his tenure there and Beisner-Buck has years of experience from her time at NFL Network before moving to ESPN to do feature reporting.
However, this time hosting together, they clearly made the most of it. Joe Buck’s welcome coming out of PTI was legitimately funny. Take that, Artie Lange.
"C'MON Kornheiser, fire it up!" – Joe Buck intros Monday Night Countdown in relief of Scott Van Pelt.
"A lot of bad decisions have been made in this little strip of real estate. We're hoping to make good ones tonight." pic.twitter.com/6jOJGAfSkd
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 9, 2023
Joe Buck breaking out his one-man NFL fan show to open Monday Night Countdown. pic.twitter.com/vDRCwmUsy9
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 9, 2023
Later on in the pregame when Buck and Beisner-Buck were on the field together with Troy Aikman the pair had a light-hearted moment where Aikman even switched her last name around and Beisner-Buck laughed it off while kicking her husband upstairs to prepare for the game broadcast.
There was also the very romantic “Good job, babe” when Michelle kicked it to Joe before the game started.
Ultimately, it was Michelle who had the last laugh as Ryan Clark told her, “I feel like I just watched you and Joe go on a date. That was like an hour-long date that we got to watch.”
Beisner-Buck quipped: “That’s probably the most time that we’ve spent together in a long time.”
"That's probably the most time that we've spent together in a long time." – Michelle Beisner-Buck pic.twitter.com/YT5T1X1KMP
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 9, 2023
If networks are still struggling for programming ideas, the Buck family reality show might not be the worst idea in the world.

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