Troy Aikman Signals Monday Night Football Exit as ESPN Deal Ends

Troy Aikman went on the radio and was asked about his future with ESPN in the booth for Monday Night Football. Troy Aikman said, quote, there's probably a time and a place for all that. I don't know if it's now, if now is the time. I don't know if it's hard to figure out what, figure out kind of what happened. I'll broadcast this season and I'll be a free agent at the end of the year and kind of see what happens. I'm looking forward to whatever the rest of the season does hold and the Super Bowl and all that and where my next landing spot may be. Troy Aikman just went public and confirmed that he will not be broadcasting with Joe Buck next year. That the last broadcast for Troy Aikman in what has been arguably the best booth since Madden in Summerall will no longer exist on ESPN for Monday Night Football. all. He's making $18 million a year. So I'm not going to cry for Troy Aikman here, but Joe Buck signed a contract and he did not guarantee that Aikman was coming with him. I think that's a mistake. And I think Joe Buck will ultimately look back on this as a mistake because I think when you trade your broadcasting partner, one you have worked with for years and clearly Aikman's pissed off and I don't blame him for being pissed off. And now you're going to have a reshuffling of that booth on Monday night where it had been really stable. I feel bad for Pat McAfee. I'm not going to lie because if Pat's telling the truth, and I don't know why Pat wouldn't tell the truth, but Pat is saying that there is absolutely no truth to the rumor that they're going to put Pat McAfee next to Joe Buck. I don't think that's going to happen. I think that would be a huge mistake for Pat and for ESPN to do that. I speculated that it's Tony Romo, that Tony is out there and he, Troy Aikman's $18 million and then what, $20 million plus, right? You could get Romo for half of that right now. I mean, Romo got a huge severance from CBS when they let him go for what happened with the drunk driving arrest. You're going to get a whole year without Romo broadcasting games. Why don't you bring back and put Tony Romo in the booth? Jason Kelsey cannot do it. Okay, people, look, I love Jason Kelsey. He is not, that's not his spot. Okay, too big of a stage. It'll be awful. It'll bomb. McAfee trying to riff off of Joe Buck is an awful idea, is an awful idea. So, I don't know how you replace Troy Aikman, and Troy's going to get gobbled up in two seconds, and it makes me wonder about J.J. Watt and what CBS might do with their number one, because you could see, I could easily see Jim Nance and Troy Aikman getting together, like 100%, easily getting together and being a part of it. So I can't believe Troy Aikman did that today. I can't believe he just basically, because how awkward is this going to be going forward? If there's any disagreement, if there's any type of tension on the broadcast, everyone's going to jump on it and it's going to be a headline. So supposedly they got into a big argument. Supposedly everything's smoothed over. But if I'm Joe Buck, I'm like, what the hell did you do? Like you just confirmed all of this. You go on major market radio in Dallas and tell the world that you're going to be a free agent. You just go ahead and like ESPN must, must have told him that he's out. That's what he must've gone to Joe Buck and said, Hey, what are you going to do? I'm out. And Joe Buck was like, I signed a contract. I'm here. I was like, Oh, you're staying. And it's the Jerry Maguire moment, right? Who's going with me? He's grabbing the goldfish and the secretary and walking out the door and no one's going with them. And Troy's like, "What the hell, Joe? I thought we were a team," so my god that's brutal that sucks i mean that that if i'm if i'm the ESPN brass i'm like holy crap i can't believe what Troy just did he just turned the flames up in a big way and if there was a plan to bring in McAfee i think those plans are going to get scrapped if there's a plan to bring in somebody else i think those plans get fast forwarded and maybe even made public before the end of the year. Reminder ESPN and ABC have the Super Bowl and Aikman and Buck are calling the Super Bowl together and it will be the last broadcast for Troy Aikman on ESPN for Monday Night Football. It'll be the Super Bowl. Awkward. Really awkward.