Troy Aikman still has a Super Bowl to call at SoFi Stadium in February, but with the Hall of Famer openly calling himself a free agent and ESPN yet to approach him about a new deal, just about everyone in sports media already has a favorite to replace him in the Monday Night Football booth.
Rob Parker has his, and it isn’t Greg Olsen, the decorated former Fox lead analyst whom Tom Brady bumped down to the No. 2 booth in 2024 and whom Puck’s John Ourand now pegs as ESPN’s likely choice, or Pat McAfee, ESPN’s ubiquitous punter-turned-media mogul, whose name keeps creeping back into the conversation even after he declared this week that he tried color commentary, found it boring, and has zero interest in calling games.
Speaking on his The Odd Couple show, Parker threw his weight behind CBS Sports studio analyst Russell Wilson and said ESPN should treat the opening as a long-overdue correction for a broadcast whose lead booth is now five seasons removed from its last Black analyst.
“It’s time for ABC/ESPN to hire a brother in that job and give an opportunity to be representative of the league, and I got the guy,” Parker said, “because he just retired and he’s doing studio work now. Russell Wilson should have that job. He checks all the freaking boxes. Quarterback, they usually give the job to a quarterback, right? [He] won a Super Bowl and went to two Super Bowls, so he’s a winner. Articulate, smart, good-looking. What doesn’t he have? He has a high-profile wife that brings the audience from pop culture. Like, he checks every single box. Enough of just taking care of hand-chosen white guys to represent the league. How? I just don’t understand it.”
Rob Parker believes ESPN should replace Troy Aikman with Russell Wilson on Monday Night Football. He argues that Wilson “checks all the boxes” for the network, making him a much better fit than someone like Pat McAfee. https://t.co/OoVJOvllF8
— NBA Hoops (@Thechat101) October 16, 2026
To be fair to ESPN, the network has turned to Black analysts in the Monday Night Football booth before, just not since Buck and Aikman arrived from Fox in 2022. Booger McFarland spent 2018 rolling along the sideline in the much-maligned Boogermobile before moving upstairs as Joe Tessitore’s lead analyst in 2019, after Jason Witten left the booth to return to the Cowboys. Louis Riddick, the former Eagles personnel director turned ESPN draft and front-office voice, took over the following season alongside Steve Levy and Brian Griese, and that trio lasted two years before ESPN poached Buck and Aikman from Fox.
That aforementioned partnership started splintering in September, when ESPN rewarded Buck with a six-year, $108 million extension that keeps him behind the microphone through the network’s next Super Bowl in 2031 while leaving Aikman, his broadcast partner of 25 seasons, to the wind, even after Aikman told Richard Deitsch days later that he had expected his own deal to be done before the season and had never once entered the final year of a contract since the Cowboys drafted him in 1989.
Front Office Sports’ Ryan Glasspiegel reported this week that the unspoken resentment finally spilled over before Monday’s Bills-Rams game at SoFi Stadium, the same venue that will host ESPN’s Super Bowl in February, when Buck broached the contract disparity and the two got into an argument that cooled off in time for a broadcast in which viewers never would have noticed anything was wrong.
Aikman made no effort to bury the story when he appeared on KTCK The Ticket in Dallas Thursday morning, and he doubled down that evening, telling Jimmy Traina that ESPN seems to be heading in a different direction.
Aikman, Olsen, and Kirk Herbstreit all entered this season with some degree of contract uncertainty, and ESPN, CBS, and Prime Video could each conceivably be shopping for a new top voice by spring. Ourand reported that Olsen has held some renewal talks with Fox but signed nothing, and the former tight end has little reason to settle for the No. 2 seat while Brady collects $37.5 million a year to occupy the top one. Fox isn’t ready to let him walk, though. Sports Business Journal’s Richard Deitsch reported Thursday that the network laid out the parameters of a new deal to Olsen’s representatives early in the offseason, and Fox Sports president Brad Zager said the company wants Olsen around for a long time.
UPDATE: Spoke to Fox Sports management: They said early in the offseason they spoke with Greg Olsen’s representative where they laid out what the parameters of a new contract would be. So from the Fox Sports perspective, they say they’ve had some conversations about a contract. Said Fox Sports president Brad Zager: “We want Greg here for a long time. We are ready to pick up those conversations whenever they are ready.”
— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) October 16, 2026
Ourand’s reporting has made Olsen the presumed frontrunner, butTravis Kelce and Rams coach Sean McVay have both drawn mentions as outside-the-box options, and The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand speculated that ESPN could slide Peyton and Eli Manning into the booth with Buck on a rotating basis rather than keep them on the slumping ManningCast. Kirk Herbstreit could also become a factor if his situation at Prime Video, muddied by a reported extension that includes an escape hatch letting Amazon replace him if one of its preferred targets, such as McVay, becomes available, leaves him looking for a new home by spring.
Wilson hasn’t surfaced in any of that reporting, partly because he’s roughly six weeks into his second career. The 37-year-old retired in June to replace Matt Ryan on The NFL Today, choosing television over a contract offer from the New York Jets to back up former Seahawks teammate Geno Smith after a late-career slide that included a disastrous two-year stint in Denver, a single season in Pittsburgh, and a 2025 campaign spent behind Jaxson Dart with the Giants.
“I think it’s a disservice. I think ABC, ESPN, whoever’s doing the hiring, I know they already have their guy picked out and what they want to do,” Parker added. “Pat McAfee’s name has come up. That’s how they’re going to justify paying him $60 some odd million. He claims that they haven’t talked to him yet, but don’t doubt that for a second. Don’t doubt it for one second that he might be the guy they try to put on, and that’s why they gave him all that money, and they’re trying to justify it. I’m dead serious. Why would it be him? Russell Wilson should be with Joe Buck and be on Monday Night Football.”
Parker can doubt him all he wants, but McAfee has now stamped out that rumor twice in three days. The idea initially gained traction after The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson pitched him as an unconventional hire in the mold of Dennis Miller’s ill-fated two-year run on ABC, and McCarthy picked up the thread by casting McAfee’s upcoming Super Bowl Field Pass altcast as a potential tryout.
“I am not supposed to be a color commentator for football,” McAfee said. “That is something I’ve decided.”
Whether calling games is something Russell Wilson has given any thought to is anyone’s guess, since his only public comments about his TV future have centered on the studio job he took at CBS over a backup gig with the Jets.
The post Rob Parker suggests Russell Wilson replace Troy Aikman on ‘Monday Night Football’ appeared first on Awful Announcing.