Bill Simmons is loving the tension between Troy…
You can depend Bill Simmons among those who love the building on-air tension between feuding “Monday Night Football” announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.
The Ringer founder said as a lot in a response to a mailbag query on his “Bill Simmons Podcast” asking him if ESPN is “actually going to do this to us through the relaxation of the soccer season through the Super Bowl?’
“I feel completely the opposite. I love it,” Simmons, a former ESPN columnist and analyst, said. “I want them to stay together and just be in mutual hatred.”
Podcast visitor Joe House, Simmons’ faculty buddy who also seems on playing podcasts, concurred that he “could not agree more,” before including, “I’m with you. Yes, please. I love it.”
Joe Buck and Troy Aikman look on prior to a recreation between the Dallas Cowboys and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFC Wild Card playoff recreation at Raymond James Stadium on January 16, 2023 in Tampa, Florida. Getty Images
Aikman, whose ESPN contract is set to expire after the Super Bowl, reportedly blew up at Buck before a “MNF” broadcast between the Bills and Rams on Oct.2, as first reported by Front Office Sports.
A subsequent report in The Athletic said that the Hall of Fame quarterback also obtained into an argument that evening with ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro.
‘Troy does this thing where Buck is setting [him] up, and Troy’s just like, ‘Yeah, you’re precisely proper, Joe,’” Simmons said, laughing.
House then chimed in calling the state of affairs “an extra reason to watch,” before including, “I’m there for the drama. I mean, it’s super-intriguing.”
“That’s a great point, Joe,” Simmons said. “He looks like somebody’s in his ear piece giving him the worst news possible about the stock market that day and telling Troy that his Crypto account got wiped out. I love it, I don’t want them to break up Keep them together.”
The dialogue was set upo by Simmons studying an e-mail from a viewer in Alabama calling the Aikman-Buck kerfuffle “uncomfortable.”
“Am I the only one that feels uncomfortable watching ‘Monday Night Football’ with Aikman and Buck?” Simmons read from the fan. “It looks like I’m at a {couples} dinner in a good restaurant with another couple that everybody is aware of is getting divorced and they will barely cover their disgust for one another.
“The dinner conversation doesn’t flow, lots of eye rolls, they’re only staying together for the kids, drsgging down the evening.”
Buck agreed to a six-year extension with ESPN price around $108 million in September, according to The Athletic, to stay as the play-by-play voice of “Monday Night Football,” including the Super Bowl this season and in 2031.
Bill Simmons and Joe House on The Ringer podcast. TheRinger/X
Aikman’s five-year, $90 million deal is set to expire after the Super Bowl in February,
Buck and Aikman have labored together since 2002, making them the longest-running sales space pairing in NFL historical past.
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