Troy Aikman thought he'd have a new deal with ESPN by now

On Monday night, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman will call the Giants-Rams game. Buck has a new contract. Aikman does not.

And Aikman is surprised that his new deal is not yet done.

Via Jon Lewis of SportsMediaWatch.com, Aikman recently addressed the situation in an appearance on the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch.

“I thought something would be done prior to the start of this season,” Aikman told Deitsch. “I’ve never gone into the last year of a contract ever since I signed with the Dallas Cowboys. And so I thought that it would be done. It’s not. When it might get done, if it gets done, is anyone’s guess. And it’s really not something that I’m putting a lot of energy into.”

Buck and Aikman have worked together since 2002. They jumped from Fox to ESPN in 2022. They signed five-year deals. Buck now has a five-year extension; Aikman does not.

Aikman said that he hasn’t spoken with ESPN executives regarding what Buck’s deal means to Aikman’s.

“How much of that is my decision, I guess is yet to be determined,” Aikman said. “Would I like to continue working with Joe Buck moving down the road? 100 percent.”

Perhaps ESPN will decide to pair Buck with someone else, like Pat McAfee. (I’m kidding, I think.) However it goes, Aikman realizes that the broader mission of ESPN pilfering Buck and Aikman from Fox has been accomplished.

“I came over in 2022 in large part to kind of help mend the relationship with ESPN and the NFL,” Aikman said. “I feel like the reason that I was brought over, I fulfilled whatever obligations they were expecting from me. So much so that . . . the league now owns 10 percent of the network. So I would say the fence has been mended.”

The only question left is whether the bridge with Aikman will eventually be burned.