Troy Aikman’s uncertain future at ESPN has opened the door to plenty of speculation about who could eventually take his seat alongside Joe Buck on Monday Night Football.
Jimmy Traina has one candidate in mind, and he sounds confident enough in his prediction to put money behind it. With other networks locking in their top broadcast teams, ESPN’s possible succession plan is becoming increasingly intriguing.
Jimmy Traina Picks Greg Olsen for ESPN’s Monday Night Football Booth
During a segment on “Traina Thoughts,” Traina worked through the NFL’s biggest broadcast jobs and landed on Olsen as his clear favorite for ESPN.
“The other two weekly prime time games are Monday night, which will be Greg Olsen. I would put heavy money on that,”Traina said.
That’s a prediction. Traina’s confidence doesn’t make Olsen’s arrival a completed deal, and the discussion offered no announcement from ESPN.
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Still, the potential fit has been getting attention.Aikman has said he expects to become a free agent after his contract expires following ESPN’s Super Bowl broadcast. Olsen’s Fox deal also expires after this season, according to reporting cited in that coverage. The timing gives the speculation some substance.
Olsen brings credentials from both sides of the microphone. The former tight end earned two second-team All-Pro selections and has won two Sports Emmys.
He also has experience calling a Super Bowl, an obvious selling point for a network considering who should sit beside Buck. ESPN would be evaluating someone who has already handled the biggest assignment in the business.
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For Olsen, the appeal is straightforward. A Monday Night Football job would put him back in a lead booth with a weekly national audience. Traina clearly thinks the opportunity and the candidate line up.
Traina Sees Few Openings for Troy Aikman
The other half of Traina’s argument concerned the jobs that could be unavailable to Aikman.
He pointed to J.J. Watt’s multiyear agreement with CBS to work alongside Jim Nantz, Tom Brady’s position at Fox, and Cris Collinsworth’s renewed deal at NBC. In Traina’s assessment, those arrangements leave Amazon as the most plausible destination for another lead role.
“There is no job for Troy Aikman other than possibly Amazon,” he said during the same discussion.
Even that possibility came with a qualification. Traina discussed what he described as exit provisions in Kirk Herbstreit’s Amazon agreement, while acknowledging uncertainty about whether Aikman could become an option there.
That makes the two potential moves very different bets. Traina was emphatic about Olsen getting Monday nights. He sounded far less certain about where Aikman would land.
With all the attention on who leaves ESPN, the question of who replaces them may prove easier to answer. Traina has already picked his guy. Finding Aikman an equally prominent opening is where his confidence runs out.
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network.