Troy Aikman And The Monday Night Football Production Team Apparently Did Not Like Each Other Last Season

Peter Joneleit. Shutterstock Images.

SOURCE - ESPN recently announced that it is swapping out its director and producer for Monday Night Football next season. The previous MNF director and producer are being moved to the network’s college football coverage and not being fired, but following the move various crew members are voicing their complaints about Troy Aikman. 

“It all started week one, he was dogging the crew and gear on the air when he couldn’t figure his telestrator out. He couldn’t figure it out because he shows up on game day. Didn’t practice,” a contractor on the MNF team told Awful Announcing. 

“Troy travels on his private jet on Monday mornings and flies home after the game,” said a source. “He could not be further removed from the crew and I would confidently say that he knows maybe 10 people on a crew of like 150+ people.” 

It's interesting that the criticism is being leveled at Aikman and not Joe Buck as well. I assume that means that Buck isn't pulling this game day only act that Aikman is. This is a pretty bad look for Aikman. You can't bitch about stuff not working if you aren't going to be available to test it out. 

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Aikman is getting insane money from ESPN. He signed a 5 year/$90 million deal to go to Monday Night Football. I'm guessing it's in his contract that he can just show up on game day and leave right after. So a lot of the blame for this lies at the feet of ESPN for allowing this to happen. But it does say a lot about Aikman that this was a contract request.

To me, the bigger crime is berating the crew. ESPN lets you show up in a private jet and come and go each Monday, that's one thing. You can't then show up last minute and shit on the crew and equipment. That's being an asshole.

I really like the Buck/Aikman crew and they are a huge upgrade from the lousy announcing teams that ESPN has feasted on us in the past. But Aikman did seem much grumpier calling games this year than he had in the past with FOX. I had chalked it up to him just getting older but maybe it had more to do with the behind the scenes tension.

Troy Aikman got his way. Monday Night Football is getting a new director and producer for next season. I really like the Buck/Aikman team. They are one of the best in all of football and it is nice having a good MNF crew again. But if Aikman starts bitching about the production next season, it'll be obvious the real problem is him.