Troy Aikman’s sometimes brutal honesty makes him the best NFL game analyst on TV in my book.
Aikman and his partner Joe Buck proved again why they’re the best NFL booth duo during ABC/ESPN’s coverage of the Chiefs 23-14 AFC divisional playoff win over the Texans.
Aikman summed up the disgust of many fans and media observers at the flopping of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes Saturday night.
With the Chiefs leading in the fourth quarter, Mahomes slowed down near the sideline—seemingly waiting for a push in the back from a Texans defender. When he got one, the three-time Super Bowl champ fell theatrically to the ground, begging for a 15-yard penalty.
Neither Aikman or Buck were buying the act. They defended the officials for not throwing a flag after the zebras had already handed Mahomes two questionable calls earlier in the game.
“You see, rather than just run out of bounds, he slows down,” Aikman noted about Mahomes’s effort to draw a penalty. “That’s been the frustration. I get it, I understand. That’s been the frustration of these defensive players around the league.”
Earlier in the game, in the third quarter, there was also a phantom foul on the Texans. As Mahomes slithered and scrambled, he got sandwiched by a couple of Houston defenders. The hit looked worse than it was. Still, the refs threw the flag for a helmet-to-helmet hit.
Aikman had the cojones to call out not just the refs, but the league: “Aww, come on. I mean, he’s a runner,” Aikman said. “I could not disagree with that one more. He barely gets hit.”
You might expect the former Cowboys superstar to err on the side of defending his fellow QB, but he didn’t. Instead, Aikman called on the NFL to tackle the flopping problem.
“They’ve got to address that in the offseason. You can’t, as a quarterback, run around and play games with defenders, then be able to draw a penalty,” he warned.
Buck agreed with Aikman, noting it was similar to a questionable call that went against the Texans in the first quarter. “Really it was the two Houston defenders hitting each other. Mahomes barely got touched,” Buck said.
As my FOS colleague Ryan Glasspiegel texted me after the play: “Troy really has become America’s conscience.”
I also liked how Aikman and Buck chortled over the Chiefs punter running out of bounds at the end of the game for a safety, creating a back door Texans cover given the 9.5 point spread. “Al Michaels is smiling right now,” cracked Aikman. I’m sure millions of sports bettors screamed. But you just knew Monday Night Countdown host Scott Van Pelt was salivating over fodder for his next “Bad Beats” segment.
Look, I know Mahomes is the face of the NFL. He’s my favorite player to watch. But as the Chiefs try to make history as the first team to win three straight Super Bowls, there’s a perception NFL refs are giving the Golden Boy—and the Chiefs—preferential treatment. It’s not a good look for the league’s most popular and powerful sports league.
Tom Brady at Fox, Tony Romo at CBS and Cris Collinsworth at NBC should all take note of how Aikman and Buck served the viewers Saturday night.
The referees aren’t sacred cows to be defended at all costs. They’re humans who make mistakes. They’re also employees who give the benefit of the doubt to superstars, the way NFL refs previously did with Brady and NBA zebras did with Michael Jordan.
I’ve given Brady, Fox’s $37.5 million-a-year man, better reviews for his first season in the broadcast booth than most sports media critics.
But I think if Tom Terrific lets it fly by saying what he really thinks during Fox’s Lions-Commanders broadcast Saturday night, it would reassure viewers he’s on their side—not in the pocket of his fellow NFL owners.
The question of Brady’s conflict of interest as a broadcaster and now a Raiders part owner is a fair one, and it comes down to whether he can really do his job effectively with the (loosely enforced) restrictions against him. To do his job effectively, he must be able to speak honestly about officiating calls, like Aikman did today.
Brady will call Super Bowl LIX on Feb. 9. A strong performance in New Orleans would go a long way toward dispelling all the speculation he won’t return to Fox next season.
Separately from Aikman and Buck, I also think ESPN left some coverage opportunities on the table. The network did a nice job showing the shocking scene when Kris Boyd of the Texans shoved his special teams coach Frank Ross. Even better, they showed the moment that made Ross go nuts (Boyd threw his helmet on the field, drawing a 15-yard penalty). But ESPN, inexplicably, never updated viewers again on the Boyd situation, which generated national coverage.
My sources tell me ESPN producers in the truck discussed having their sideline reporters go back, but the action moved on. Missed opportunity.
Still, Aikman and Buck proved why they were entrusted to call six Super Bowl telecasts during their long partnership at Fox. If their performance Saturday was a preview of ESPN’s first-ever Super Bowl telecast coming after the 2026 season, then ESPN will be just fine when it finally gets to air its first Big Game.
