While Tom Brady calls his third straight Dallas Cowboys’ game for Fox, Troy Aikman is having to prepare for different teams every week on Monday Night Football.
Aikman joined the latest episode of SBJ’s The Sports Media Podcast and during the interview, he was asked about the differences in calling Monday Night Football for ESPN as compared to doing games for Fox.
“The biggest difference is we have two different teams every week,” Aikman said. “Whereas at Fox we would sometimes have teams back-to-back, or if a team was having a successful year we would kind of get on their bandwagon a little bit and follow them around.
“Obviously, our schedule is pretty much set when it comes out in May for Monday Night Football. Maybe a little more prep in getting ready for those games as opposed to at Fox because there’s not as much carryover, but other than that it’s football and it’s broadcasting.”
Aikman also noted watching game film is the most time-consuming part of that prep work, which should appease Kurt Warner. But it’s interesting that Aikman called out prep work as the biggest difference in going from Fox to ESPN for Monday Night Football, especially with Brady now going 3-3 in Cowboys games to start his broadcasting career.
Jim Nantz and Tony Romo will probably call their 30th game of Patrick Mahomes’ career at some point this season. Awful Announcing predicts Brady will call six Cowboys games this season, but it could be as many as ten. Nantz and Phil Simms called eight New England Patriots games in 2012 for CBS, while Pat Summerall and John Madden called 11 Cowboys games in 1995 and 1996 for Fox.
Naturally, the prep work will lessen when you’re calling one team 10 or eleven times in the same season, as compared to being tasked with preparing for different matchups each week. And with the NFL restricting Brady’s broadcasting access to teams in the wake of his pending ownership bid with the Las Vegas Raiders, it could entice Fox to put him on more Cowboys games for familiarity’s sake. And for all of the wondering about how Brady will handle the NFL’s restrictions, it may have been a bigger hurdle if he was in Aikman’s chair on Monday Night Fooball.