ESPN’s Joe Buck on softening Eagles fans and a possible future without Troy Aikman

Do Eagles fans actually like Joe Buck?

Buck has had a lot stacked against him in Philly during much of his broadcasting career. Eagles fans have hated Buck because of his association with Hall of Famer Troy Aikman, who led the Dallas Cowboys to three Super Bowl victories. Phillies fans felt like he was rooting against their team because they were used to hearing fan-friendly announcers like Harry Kalas and Tom McCarthy.

“Philly fans are at times hard to please, and that’s what makes them great,” Buck said. “They demand effort and excellence.”

A good example of the divide was 2008, when Buck was broadcasting the Phillies’ World Series victory on Fox while Kalas provided the radio call.

Kalas’ passionate call of the final out, a strikeout by closer Brad Lidge, still gives goose bumps to Philly sports fans: “Swing and a miss! Struck him ooooooooout! The Philadelphia Phillies are 2008 world champions of basebaaaaaaaall!”

Buck’s call, by contrast, was dry and direct: “Phillies are world champions.”

“I was raised in a house where I was taught to dislike Joe Buck,” Kylie Kelce said of Buck last year on her husband’s short-lived ESPN late-night now. “It seemed as though he was always cheering for the other team,”

But these days, Buck has noticed a lot less venom from Philly sports fans, especially compared to 2015, when he quit Twitter for over a year over harsh criticism from fans during a Phillies game against the Boston Red Sox.

Buck’s voice is one of the few in the sports world that signal a big game, and fans have come to view him and Aikman as one of the best broadcasting duo’s in the league. This year, the two will be back calling the Super Bowl, their first together since 2020 at Fox.

Buck isn’t sure what to attribute his newfound respect from Philly sports fans to. Likely it has something to do with Aikman being far removed from his playing days with the Cowboys, but the more likely culprit is the fact he no longer calls national baseball games.

“Everyone is listening to every tone that comes out of your mouth and assigning some rooting interest that just doesn’t exist,” Buck said. “There would just be no reason why I would root against Philly. It’s just silly stuff.”

Count Angelo Cataldi among Buck’s fans. As the morning host of 94.1 WIP for more than three decades, Cataldi was never afraid to rip into announcers, whether it was Philly native Dick Stockton or celebrated play-by-player Al Michaels.

But Buck never ended up in Cataldi’s crosshairs.

“I think people have come around on Joe over the past five to 10 years,” Cataldi said. “He’s always accused of rooting for the opposite team, but if you listen to his broadcast, it’s right down the middle.”

In his fifth season on ESPN’s Monday Night Football, Buck won’t have a rooting interest when the Eagles take on the Chicago Bears. But his stat guy in the booth will.

Ed Sfida, a Villanova grad, has worked with Buck and Aikman in the booth since 2003, dating back to their days at Fox Sports. They’ve become so close Buck invited Sfida to his wedding when he married Michelle Beisner, who now works alongside her husband at ESPN.

“Back at Fox, if the Eagles were playing the same time we were doing another game and scored a touchdown, we’d look down in the corner of the booth where Sfida stands and he’s doing the Eagles’ wing flapping thing,” Buck said. “He’s the best.”

Buck is in his 33rd year calling NFL games in a career that dates back to Fox acquiring TV rights to the league in 1994.

That’s a long time, but he has a ways to go to match Eagles radio announcer Merrill Reese, who is in his 50th season calling the Birds, easily the most-tenured announcer in the league.

If Buck were to make it to 50 years, he’d be 74. So does he seem himself lasting in the booth that long?

“The answer to your question is no,” Buck said, pointing out he was coming off a difficult broadcast where he wasn’t feeling great and was “mentally fried.”

“It’s just amazing to me, whether it’s Merrill or Al Michaels, the mental clarity and strength it takes to find your way through these games and not say something ridiculously stupid,” Buck said.

That doesn’t mean Reese or any other veteran broadcaster is perfect. Just last week, Reese mistakingly thought a Tennessee Titans interception of Jalen Hurts had been returned for a touchdown. But he rebounded to offer a vintage call of Hurts leading the Eagles to a last-minute comeback victory.

“I’m just blown away by Merrill and how smart and clear and energetic is he,” Buck said.

Buck recently signed a contract extension reportedly worth more than $100 million that will keep him at ESPN through the 2032 season. But Aikman hasn’t and reportedly won’t until after the season ends, after he and Buck call Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium in February.

There’s been uncertainly about the longtime duo before. When Aikman signed with ESPN in 2022, Buck still had a year remaining on his deal with Fox, but executives did him a favor and let him out of his contract early so he could move to ESPN with Aikman.

Buck hasn’t spoken with Aikman about his plans — “Troy and I have always kept that stuff separate,” Buck said — but he hopes the two will remain together at ESPN and keep the NFL’s longest-running TV booth going.

“I love him literally like a brother. I followed him to ESPN,” Buck said. “I’m hopefully things work out.”

As for Aikman, there could be plenty of options. With uncertainty at CBS due to Tony Romo’s arrest and subsequent suspension, Aikman could solidify their No. 1 booth ahead of their Super Bowl next season. There’s also Amazon Prime, where Thursday Night Football announcers Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit have contracts that expire at the end of the season.

“I’ve been in this business long enough to know nothing is a guarantee,” Buck said. “So my only answer to any of that is we’ll see.