The situation between Joe Buck and Troy Aikman might be worse than we thought. Buck got a new contract and Aikman didn’t, which led to an “argument” before the Week 5 “Monday Night Football” game between the Los Angeles Rams and Buffalo Bills. Today some new details were revealed about that argument and it sounds like things got heated.
According to “In Touch” earlier this week, “it nearly got physical.” Now Dylan Byers of Puck has even more details about the confrontation between the two and does sound pretty intense. Via Pro Football Talk:
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“There had been weeks of Troy becoming increasingly cold, difficult, short, making comments,” a source with direct knowledge of the situation told Byers. “Joe finally snapped,” the source told Byers, in reference to the Week 5 incident at the Bills-Rams game. “He basically said, ‘Dude, are we really going to do this?’ And Troy’s position was: You f–ked me over!”
Said another unnamed source to Byers, “They exchanged some very direct and honest feelings.”
Maybe an airing of the grievances was exactly what the longtime partners needed. Buck and Aikman spent 20 years as Fox’s lead football booth before they both signed with ESPN in 2022. When you look at where ESPN spends most of their money, it seems like a strange decision to break up arguably the best booth in football. Or maybe not.
MORE: Troy Aikman couldn’t hide dislike of analytics during MNF with Joe Buck
With ESPN broadcasting the Super Bowl this season, it’s the worst possible time for this, but so far Buck and Aikman have been able to compartmentalize when they’re on-air. Despite what the body language experts have said, Buck and Aikman seem fairly normal during their broadcasts. Including in Week 5 when Aikman had just accused his longtime partner of f-ing him over.
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