#Joe Buck doesn’t want ‘best friend’ Troy Aikman to leave Fox

Joe Buck does not want to think about what the Fox NFL booth would be like without Troy Aikman.

Buck appeared on the Sports Illustrated media podcast this week, and was asked if he has thought about what would happen if Aikman left for Amazon or elsewhere in media free agency.

“I try not to because it’s been 20 years and I can honestly say, the same hand to the same god, he and I have never had one moment where we have felt like…at least I haven’t, and we talk about it all the time, we’re lucky that we’re good friends,” Buck said, according to Awful Announcing. “And in this business, with as much as there is on the line, at least in our own minds every time you go on, and this business can be kind of backstabby, everybody’s climbing over one another to make something happen for themselves, he and I just have never played that game. He’s legitimately one of my best friends and I think he would say the same about me.”

“So I try not to think about it. And we talk about it, we talk about what’s out there. We talk about what he’s deciding between and everything else, but I only ask questions and talk about it to a point. Because that’s his life, that’s his career. He knows how I feel. I don’t want him going anywhere. And that’s understood. But at the end of the day, he’s gonna do what he wants to do.”

If Aikman did leave, who would his replacement be?

“It’s funny. I haven’t said one word to Fox about all that,” said Buck. “And they have not talked to me about all that. Not at any point.”

“I think I would be in the conversation but I think they certainly are in no way, shape, or form obligated to listen to anything I have to say. They’re the boss, I’m the guy who sits in the booth. I’ve worked with multiple people in baseball, I’ve worked with multiple people in football. I started with Tim Green and I’ve been with Bill Maas and Brian Baldinger and different people along the way. I just…it’s been 20 years, and when you do these games, that are as intense as they are, I know where he’s going and he knows where I’m going, and I know what he wants to talk about and he knows when and what I want to talk about. That’s really hard to replicate.”

It would qualify as a surprise if Aikman did leave Fox Sports. Their brand, in football plus other sports, is having commentators who were both big stars and former champions as players. Aikman would be awfully hard for them to replace in that regard, in addition to Buck’s point about replicating the chemistry.