Troy Aikman explains why he gets ‘offended’ when his analysis gets framed as critical

When Jason Kelce told Troy Aikman on this week’s New Heights podcast that his analysis never comes across as an attack, Aikman said that was the best thing anyone could have said to him.

“What I’m most grateful for you saying is that it doesn’t feel like I’m attacking anybody,” Aikman said. “Because there’s times when somebody writes something that I said and then it comes off as I was being critical of the player. And I get offended by that, because the one thing that I’ve always tried to do — I tried to be honest.”

Aikman has been one of the more outspoken voices in the Monday Night Football booth since joining ESPN in 2022, and the gap between how he sees his own commentary and how it gets characterized has clearly worn on him. He’s been critical of quarterbacks, coaches, and officials, and the coverage of those moments has often framed it as Aikman going after somebody. His point is that honesty and criticism aren’t the same thing, and conflating them is what bothers him.

The former Philadelphia Eagles All-Pro center for his part, doesn’t see it that way.

“I think you kill it,” Jason said. “Every time we talk, me, Swag, Ryan, SVP, anytime you’re on the desk, it’s amazing to us how quickly you snap into it, what you say just pierces through all the nonsense. The way you talk about the quarterback position, in particular, but really just football in general. There’s a realness that doesn’t come off like you’re attacking anybody, it’s just like face value, what you’re seeing that you articulate in every medium I hear you in.”

Aikman said his respect for what the players are actually doing on the field is what keeps the analysis from crossing into something else.

“I have so much respect for the players and the coaches that participate in this game,” he continued. “The three of us, we know how hard the game is to play, and I especially know how hard the quarterback position is to play. It doesn’t mean every throw is perfect, doesn’t mean that every time the quarterback plays well. And I will point that out, but I hope I do it in a respectful way, and not in a way that tries to embarrass or be disrespectful to the people that are out there on the field doing it.”

Aikman has been building toward this version of himself for years. The give-no-f*cks era that has defined his time at ESPN — blasting ugly quarterback play, refusing to dress up a bad game as something it wasn’t, sparring with rules analysts on air over calls he thought were wrong — did not arrive overnight. It took two decades at Fox, a move to ESPN in 2022, and a five-year, $90 million deal that effectively told him he had nothing left to prove, before the broadcaster Kelce is describing fully emerged.

That version of Aikman is also, by his own account, the one that keeps getting mischaracterized.