Troy Aikman may be about to do something he hasn’t done since college. After a brilliant 12-year career behind center for the Dallas Cowboys and then another two decades as lead color commentator at Fox Sports, the Hall of Famer looks to be on the verge of switching teams.
The New York Post is reporting that Aikman, 55, is expected to leave Fox to become the main analyst for ESPN’s “Monday Night Football.” A five-year deal is said to be on the table, with an annual salary that will apparently “approach or exceed” that of Tony Romo, who makes $17.5 million for CBS.
Aikman has not signed the contract as of this writing, but his acceptance would cause a massive ripple effect throughout broadcast booths across several the major networks, and maybe even on the sidelines of some NFL teams.
The legendary Cowboys passer was thought to be considering joining the broadcast team at Amazon Prime Video, who will begin airing Thursday night games in the 2022 season. Al Michaels, whose NBC contract has already expired, will do play-by-play for Amazon; Aikman was said to be the leading contender to be his color man.
Now it appears NBC, Fox, and Amazon will all need to spend more time sifting through the résumé pile.
Former Saints coach Sean Payton has expressed a strong desire to dabble in TV, at least for a while. It’s thought that the Rams’ Sean McVay is someone the networks have their eye on as well, even though he has said publicly he’ll continue on in his job as head coach of the defending Super Bowl champs.
Greg Olsen, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, and even Tom Brady are names that have surfaced as possibilities to fill the various booth chairs that are about to be vacated. Aikman’s partner at Fox, Joe Buck, is bound to that network by his current contract for another year. He covers both football and baseball, but could conceivably be lured away from those duties with a large enough check (and permission from Fox).
It’s not clear what a move by Aikman to “Monday Night Football” would mean for the current crew of Steve Levy, Louis Riddick, and Brian Griese. But the Post points out that ESPN’s slate of NFL games will increase from 18 per season to 25 over the next few years. They’ll need multiple booth teams to handle that workload.
Changing teams is not something Aikman has done a lot of over his football life. He began his college career at Oklahoma, but played just one year there before transferring to UCLA. After sitting out a year per transfer rules of the day, he did enough in his final two college seasons to become the top overall pick in the 1989 NFL draft.
After that, he wore just one uniform as a pro QB, and one network’s logo on his TV blazer. But now it appears Aikman is about to join a new team.
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