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Joe Buck’s oldest daughter is getting married in Mexico this week, so the ESPN broadcaster was understandably juggling quite a mental load when The Athletic reached him on Saturday night following his call of the Kansas City Chiefs’ win over the Houston Texans. But Buck was lucid about his partner, Troy Aikman, who had a great broadcast on Saturday and has been terrific all season.
“What makes me happy is I feel like Troy is finally getting his just due and credit for being how great he is and how hard he works at this job,” Buck said. “He had a fantastic year, and I’m so glad that he’s getting these accolades because it’s long overdue in my very biased opinion. I thought all of us had a great year, and I feel like we’ve gotten better over time, which is not easy to do.
Aikman consistently offers criticism of NFL officiating when warranted — and that pointed criticism separates him from the rest of the top NFL game analysts. You always feel he’s working for viewers and not the league.
His best moment on Saturday came with 1:41 left in the third quarter when the officials called an unnecessary roughness penalty on Texans linebacker Henry To’oTo’o for a hit on Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. “Come on,” Aikman said. “I mean, he’s a runner. I could not disagree with that one more. He barely gets hit.”
CBS landed three great replays of the two-point conversion drop by Baltimore Ravens tight end Mark Andrews with 1:33 left, including a pylon camera image where you could make out the NFL logo on the football. A heartbreaking image for Ravens fans but a fantastic one for a television audience:
“You gotta catch that all day – Tony Romo pic.twitter.com/KrJbYtDCzf” — NFL on CBS (@NFLonCBS) January 20, 2025
NBC experienced fluffy snow swirling across Lincoln Financial Field in South Philly for the Eagles-Rams. It made for fantastic imagery, but it’s worth remembering that someone is freezing bringing you these images. Camera operators have to stand still in very cold conditions for hours with very limited opportunities for a break or to get warm.
Suzanne Smith, a longtime NFL director for CBS Sports, told me that some operators will use heated vests, blow dryers or dress in ski suits to try to fight the elements. The great images you saw from the Eagles-Rams game are because of production people such as these, whose names you will never know but make the NFL what it is.
Fox averaged 33.6 million viewers for Commanders-Lions on Saturday night. That is significantly down from last year’s Saturday night game in the divisional round (37.5 million viewers for 49ers-Packers on Fox).
Kirk Cousins is the latest active NFL player to join the set of an ESPN pregame show and like Fred Warner last week, Cousins showed he has a future in the profession if he wants it.
Asked about Arrowhead Stadium, Cousins delivered an answer you don’t often hear on an NFL program:
“I have a love-hate relationship with this place,” Cousins said. “I hate it because it’s loud and the opponent you are going against is iconic. But I love it because it is one of the few stadiums in the league that has not gone corporate. There is Lambeau Field, there’s Buffalo, and then there’s Arrowhead. Grass field, there’s not a bunch of suites, fans just give you that feel that you are at a really important, really big high school game. It goes back to the purity of why you love the game of football.”
For a league so tethered to sports gambling — all of sports media is these days — it’s very silly that NFL broadcasters cannot mention the specific spread of a game or an over-under as the game is concluding.
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