Sports

Fox’s Troy Aikman sounded like he wanted to be calling Cowboys-49ers over Buccaneers-Eagles



The Eagles didn’t give the Buccaneers much of a game Sunday, and it sounded as if even Fox’s broadcast team started to lose interest in the matchup.

Troy Aikman went as far as to say that “a lot of people” would want to be on the call for the upcoming matchup between the 49ers and Cowboys instead, all but outright saying that he’d rather be in Arlington than Tampa.

“It’s going to be a great game. I mean, a really good game. I think there’s a lot of people that would like to be calling that game. But should be a lot of fun,” Aikman said, eliciting laughter from play-by-play announcer Joe Buck.

MORE: 49ers vs. Cowboys live score, updates, highlights from NFL wild-card playoff game

Buck later asked Aikman if he was referring to NBC’s duo of Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth, but Aikman was doubling down on his inference that he wanted to be in Texas.

“I think anybody would like to be calling that one, right? It’s a great matchup,” Aikman responded. “Two storied franchises, both teams playing really good football. I think it’s going to be a fantastic game.”

MORE: Cowboys vs. 49ers playoff history

Aikman, of course, had some extra incentive to want to be on the call for San Francisco vs. Dallas. He was the quarterback each of the last three times the two teams have met in the playoffs, with all three games coming in the NFC championship in the 1990s.

Aikman and Dallas beat Steve Young and the 49ers in 1993 and 1994 en route to Super Bowl victories, before Young and San Francisco won in 1995 in a game preceding their Super Bowl win.

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And can Aikman really be blamed for wanting the latest matchup of the two franchises? Eagles-Buccaneers didn’t exactly deliver a classic; Tampa Bay went into the fourth quarter leading Philadephia 31-0. The Eagles scored two fourth-quarter touchdowns to make the game appear closer, but with a 31-15 final score, the game was never in doubt.

Jim Nantz and another former Cowboys quarterback, Tony Romo, are on the call for CBS in the matchup between the NFC’s fourth- and fifth-seeded teams.

There’s a chance, too, that Buck is right as well, and that Michaels and Collinsworth will have wished to have been on the call. NBC’s Sunday night broadcast is for Steelers at Chiefs, which opened with the largest point spread in NFL wild-card history. Many expect the Chiefs to win by a healthy margin.





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