Quarterback Option: Fox Names Troy Aikman's Successor
Unlike the Dallas Cowboys' quest to succeed him in the franchise quarterback spot, this Troy Aikman substitute project is guaranteed to end up in the Super Bowl.
Fox Sports has confirmed its post-Aikman plans, announcing this week that former Carolina/Chicago tight end Greg Olsen will take over the Hall of Famer's analyst headset in its top NFL tandem. Olsen will call Fox's top games alongside play-by-play man Kevin Burkhardt.
The pair replaces Aikman and Joe Buck, who occupied the Fox booth for over two decades after taking over the top pairing spot in 2002 from Pat Summerall and John Madden. Aikman and Buck have since moved on to ESPN, where they'll now call the famed "Monday Night Football" package. Reporters Erin Andrews and Tom Rinaldi have been retained from the Aikman-Buck group, as has rules expert Mike Pereira.
Set to headline Fox's 29th season of NFL coverage, Olsen and Burkhardt's work will culminate at Super Bowl LVII in Arizona this February. Though they'll make their regular-season debut as the top pair on Sept. 11 in Minnesota (with Green Bay's visit to play the Vikings serving as the 2022 opening to Fox's "America's Game of the Week" series, where the Cowboys have been a mainstay), they have previously worked through the 2021 season together. Last season marked Olsen's first full campaign with Fox Sports after ending a 14-year playing career.
Olsen's promotion, however, appears to come with a bit of an asterisk: Fox's highly-publicized, $375 million deal with current Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady would hint that he's next in line for the network's top mike, a position he's expected to claim once he ends his illustrious playing career.
Aikman will make his ESPN debut on Sept. 12 in Seattle, where the Seahawks will battle the Denver Broncos in the Monday night opener. Dallas will appear in the Week 3 edition against the New York Giants.
