The alleged feud between Scott Van Pelt and Joe Buck was short-lived. It wasn’t even a feud, like at all, but that doesn’t mean Buck didn’t try to lean into it and give viewers something to chew on
In December 2022, Van Pelt interviewed Buck and Troy Aikman just as he did after every Monday Night Football broadcast throughout the NFL season. But following the Dec. 26 interview, the internet was left buzzing after Buck complained that Van Pelt only had one question for him, sparking rumors of possible hostility between the two ESPN stars.
Because of that, Buck, who was recently a guest on Barstool Sports’ Pardon My Take, was jokingly asked by “PFT Commenter” how long he and Van Pelt have hated one another.
“That was the dumbest thing. It’s so funny,” Buck said. “Van Pelt’s like the only guy I knew at ESPN before I came there. We’d been at parties together. We had fun. We would text over the years. He would text me stuff during golf. I’d text him stuff that I saw on his show. And so now, I always look forward to the after-the-game little catch-up with Scott because he’s funny and smart.”
Buck said he was just being a “smart ass” during their little tiff and Van Pelt gave it right back to him. As he mentioned above, there’s a pre-existing relationship there, so they were obviously just busting each other’s chops. Viewers didn’t see it that way, but Buck and Van Pelt later “cleared the air” as they mocked the rumors of their perceived feud.
“The fact that that became a thing is so funny to both of us, that we came really close the next week to blowing it up and making it absurd like some awful feud,” Buck said. “I love Scott, so that whole thing…I see it on Instagram when it would come through my feed like, ‘This is a war I want to watch, Scott Van Pelt versus Joe Buck.’ Nobody wants to see that. Nobody cares. It’s junk.”
Buck’s beef is actually with Instagram, not Van Pelt. Maybe he’ll start a feud with Zuckerberg instead during the upcoming Monday Night Football season.
“That stuff’s fun to me,” he added. “It just proves, as if Brockmire didn’t, how great of an actor I am.”
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.