Earlier this month, ESPN and Joe Buck, the network’s voice of Monday Night Football, reached a six-year contract extension worth more than $100 million. However, his longtime NFL broadcast partner, Troy Aikman, whom he followed to the Worldwide Leader from Fox, remains unsigned, with his current contract set to expire after this NFL season.
Although Aikman has revealed that his talks with ESPN are currently on hold, Buck remains hopeful that the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and the network can reach an agreement that will keep the MNF booth intact beyond this season.
“I’m obviously hopeful, to say the least, that something gets done,” Buck said of Aikman inking an extension. “But that’s kind of his world, and ESPN’s world, and I’ve got to kind of mind my own yard in that stuff. I think that’s the best way to be.”
As the future of the MNF booth hangs in the balance, speculation has risen on who could replace Aikman if he does end up walking away from ESPN. Sports media insider Andrew Marchand has floated the Manning brothers, who currently host a MNF altcast throughout the season on ESPN2, as potential replacements, and now, Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson of The Press Box podcast are suggesting a dark horse candidate of their own.
During a discussion about the recent HBO documentary about comedian Dennis Miller’s two-year stint in the Monday Night Football booth, Curtis suggested that if ESPN ever wanted to go in that direction again, Pat McAfee would be the candidate who could successfully pair comedy with football.
“I hesitate to say this because it’s like saying ‘Candyman’ and something bad appears. You know the person who would actually cross this divide?” Curtis asked Anderson. “Pat McAfee. He’s kind of that guy for our time. Oh man. And if Troy Aikman doesn’t get re-signed at Monday Night Football, again, Candyman, Candyman, I’m sorry, I’m sorry to all of humanity if I’ve done something here.”
@pressboxringer If ESPN doesn’t re-sign Troy Aikman, could ESPN try another Dennis Miller-esque move with…Pat McAfee? #fyp #nfl #espn ♬ original sound – PressBoxRinger
“To me, putting him in the booth would be getting football, plus funny. I mean, he played football; he can talk ball, we know that. Yeah. And then you’d be getting all the off-the-top-of-the-head comedy stuff. I’m sorry. I apologize. But that, that to me is as close as we get to Dennis Miller.”
The “Dennis Miller experiment” in 2000 saw ABC and ESPN attempt to reinvigorate its MNF broadcast booth by pairing the comedian alongside veteran sportscaster Al Michaels and former NFL quarterback Dan Fouts. The former Saturday Night Live cast member spent two seasons in the booth spouting arcane references as he attempted to prove his worth before he and Fouts were fired in 2001 and replaced with John Madden.
Anderson questioned whether the possibility of landing in the MNF booth is the explanation for McAfee continuing to work with the ESPN brass he has butted heads with at times.
“I just wonder if he’s hanging on because that’s on the table someday,” Anderson said. “He’s already on the pregame show.”
“To me, them not signing Troy Aikman is still just insane,” Curtis responded. “Like, if that didn’t happen, that’d be such a course—I don’t wanna say course correction— such a swerve from what we thought was gonna happen five years ago, that it would just be a formality that both of those guys got re-signed. Joe Buck’s already been re-signed, by the way. I would say that, you know, somebody would ask that question. Somebody internally would be like, ‘Should we put Pat on this broadcast?'”
As things stand, smart money is on Aikman and ESPN striking a deal that would see him continue to call games alongside Buck rather than walk away from the top seat in the sport or start over with a new partner in his late 50s. Still, as hard as it may be to imagine ESPN signing Buck to an extension and then moving on from his partner of 25 years, there’s been plenty of evidence that times are changing in Bristol, CT.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.