GREEN BAY — Troy Aikman, arguably the top color commentator working in sports TV today, sat down with Front Office Sports on Monday before Eagles-Packers to discuss his candor in announcing games, the recent controversy with Caleb Williams (whose coach Ben Johnson took issue with Aikman’s candor after a recent Bears game), how he stays so healthy, and what he’s learned in the beer business. 

Aikman was a three-time Super Bowl champion quarterback with the Cowboys in the 1990s and, along with play-by-play partner Joe Buck, joined ESPN from Fox Sports in 2022. 

Front Office Sports: You’ve been differentiated in your commentating style in that you’re more willing to be critical and candid of performances than just basically anybody else. What makes you feel comfortable letting it rip and being free and honest about what you’re seeing? 

Troy Aikman: So that’s a complicated question, and probably even a more complicated answer for me. My first year at Fox, I replaced Matt Millen when he became GM at Detroit Lions. And so I moved right into the number-two booth and worked with Dick Stockton. And so one year after I’m in the business. John Madden, who was a very close friend of mine, calls me and says, “Hey, I’m going to Monday Night Football.” So the very first press conference that I had with Joe [Buck] and Cris Collinsworth—we were paired together—I was asked, “Can you be critical?” And that seemed to be the prevailing question to me [from reporters].

I was kind of taken aback by that, quite honestly. I said, “I don’t know that that’s my job to be critical. My job is to be honest. My job is to be right. And I’m going to try to do that as best I can.” I’ve never viewed my approach to it as though I’m going to be critical. I honestly don’t want to be thought of as that because I don’t think that I am [critical]. What I do feel that I am, to your point, is I feel like I’m honest. What would bother me when I was playing is I’d be watching a primetime game and the announcers would say, “This guy, this quarterback throws that ball better than anybody in the league, or he’s the only guy in the league to do X,” whatever it is. 

And I’d say, “What are you talking about? I mean, there’s 31 other guys in this league that can do that throw.” And then the next week, they’d be saying the same thing about the next guy. And I just thought it was all hyperbole. I’ve always been wired like this throughout my life, that I want to be fair. I want to be fair to the people that play and coach. And I respect those people who do that. 

FOS: Not everybody will do that on as sharp a standard as you do.

TA: Well, I’ll take that as a compliment and I’ll say thank you. I hear what you’re saying a lot. I do hear it from a lot of people, and they say that they find it a bit refreshing, but I never want to cross the line where I’m not respectful to the participants on the field because I do know how hard the position is. 

And quite honestly, you didn’t ask this, but being in Chicago and with the Caleb [Williams] situation: when you do live television for 25 years, there’s bound to be times when you say something, and you’re like, “I wish I could take that back,” or “I wish I could say, could have said that a little differently,” or in the moment you say something, you’re like, “That didn’t quite come out right.”

That game was not one of those. I walked out of that game feeling like “O.K., it was a game that came down to the wire.” It’s fun, whatever. On Tuesday evening I had dinner and I got home and I was just kind of looking at my Instagram, and all of a sudden Ben Johnson comes up and it’s got Troy Aikman written on there. And I’m like, “What is this?” First time I heard about it. So I don’t know exactly where that came from. I didn’t go back and watch the broadcast, but I would challenge anyone to go watch it and tell me that any analysis that I gave was unfair. I mean, they may disagree if I thought that was maybe not great ball placement, and they thought it was. O.K., but I’m not sure where it came from.

Read Ryan Glasspiegel’s full interview with Troy Aikman here.

ESPN is ordering several on-air talents to cut their marketing ties to controversial Papaya Gaming, Front Office Sports has learned. 

ESPN brass told Dan Orlovsky, Kendrick Perkins, Mina Kimes, and Laura Rutledge to end their promotion of Papaya and its solitaire app, sources say.

Kimes already publicly bailed this past weekend. 

The next question will be what Stephen A. Smith does. Smith was the primary star of the ad campaign promoting Papaya’s solitaire game. A representative for Smith did not respond to a request for comment. 

The ESPN faces who promoted Papaya’s “#BeatStephen Challenge” have come under fire since news emerged of a federal lawsuit accusing the company of falsely marketing games of skill and employing “tailored bots to control the outcomes of tournaments,” according to a judge.

On Saturday, Kimes publicly apologized for her involvement, calling it a “colossal fuck-up” on her part. “The truth is: I didn’t spend any time looking into the whole thing, and that’s 100% on me,” she admitted on X/Twitter. “Thought it was just typical marketing work, and I’m deeply embarrassed I didn’t vet it.”

She added later on Bluesky: “Haven’t been paid a dime (we’ll see what happens now!!) but it [sic] I do I’m certainly giving it away.”

In the past few days, Kimes, Orlovsky, and Rutledge deleted their promotional tweets. At press time, tweets from Smith and Perkins touting the #Beat Stephen tournament were still up on X.

Read Michael McCarthy’s full story on the solitaire debacle here.

• The NFL continues to be on a heater ratings-wise, with the league on pace for its best performance since the 2015 season. Through Week 10, NFL games are averaging 17.6 million viewers, up 7% since the same point in 2024. Since the kickoff of the season, NFL games account for 55 of the top 60 TV shows.  
• Count Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon among those who believe WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert is not long for her job due to her tense relations with players. “I would say they’re probably going to look for a change in leadership,” Hammon told CNBC’s Alex Sherman. “I just think it might be too fractured at this point.”
• ESPN’s Around the Horn is history. But former anchor Tony Reali is back with Around the Room, per Awful Announcing. In the inaugural episode of his digital show, Reali shared the screen with four popular content creators.
• Legendary New York Post hockey writer Larry Brooks died at age 75. Brooks was known for his Rangers, Devils, and Islanders coverage and for fearlessly standing up to John Tortorella. The Post’s Mike Vaccaro penned a moving obit to his friend and colleague. ESPN should make a 30 for 30 about the Brooksie vs. Torts feud.
• The Fox Nation streaming service has signed an extension to continue airing Real American Freestyle wrestling for an additional six shows in 2025 and 2026.
• Versant says it will use the moniker USA Sports for its sports programming across USA Network, Golf Channel, and CNBC.
• It’s back. Four years after shuttering the original NBCSN, NBCUniversal is resurrecting the cable channel as a hub for sports ranging from the NBA and WNBA to the Olympics.

2.18 million

That was the all-time record viewership for Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football Tonight pregame show hosted by Charissa Thompson before last Thursday’s Broncos-Raiders tilt. Meanwhile, Prime’s TNF game coverage is on pace for its most-watched season. Season to date, TNF is averaging 14.84 million viewers, up 13% from the same point last season.