Troy Aikman Last TV Stand? Cowboys Icon's Unselfish Maybe Goodbye; Emotions from Erin Andrews and Joe Buck
FRISCO - Troy Aikman is in demand.
Aikman is not denying that there is a chance that his TV work on Sunday’s NFC Championship Game being broadcast by FOX was to be his last stand with the network, with the possibility of the Hall of Fame QB (and beer guy) being lured away by Amazon to work starting next year on Amazon's "Thursday Night Football'' telecasts.
It's worth noting, and no surprise, that as far as we noticed, the telecast of the Rams' 17-14 win over the Niners included no weepy goodbyes or smarmy mentions ... or any mention at all.
“It’s not over for these Los Angeles Rams, but you go back to August when all of this began, the expectation was that they would be representing the NFC and they certainly are in Super Bowl 56,” Aikman said at the game’s end.
It was his last on-air comment of the telecast. And maybe, on Fox, forever.
That fits Aikman's unselfish nature; he has never needed to be "the show,'' not during his three Super Bowl wins and not during this 20-year network TV run.
But that doesn't mean his FOX colleagues can't show some emotion.
“We’re kind of having those conversations right now,” Aikman said recently when asked about a move. “So I don’t know if I will be with Amazon. And I don’t know if I will be continuing with FOX at this moment.”
How serious is this? Rumors say it FOX is already looking for his potential replacement ... meaning, Sean Payton.
This week, FOX sideline reporter Erin Andrews retweeted a story where FOX lead play-by-play guy Joe Buck, Aikman's long-time partner, said he hopes Aikman doesn't leave.
Andrews echoed Buck’s "best friend'' sentiments, tweeting, “Same.''
We can tell you that Aikman, after retiring from his brilliant 12-year career as the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, never envisioned himself staying in the TV booth for 20 years. But he enjoys it. He's great at it. And the business is about to become even more lucrative with the salary of CBS's Tony Romo (another former Cowboys QB) at an estimated $20 million annually jacking up the rate for everybody at his level.
Aikman is the best in the business. The "jack-up'' is coming. And even NFL fans who aren't Cowboys fans are quite possibly about to watch a changing of the TV guard involving a national favorite.
And Troy Aikman was just on TV for almost four hours and never said a word about himself.
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