Now that he is calling Monday Night Football games, Joe Buck has more opportunities to see how other television crews around the league operate. He says that he has had the chance to watch a lot of FOX’s top games this season and to digest the first year of Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen, who replaced him and Troy Aikman at that network.
“There have been times where they’ve had the game that involves one of the teams that we’re about to cover that next Monday night. So it’s imperative for me to watch as much as I can,” he told Richard Deitsch of The Athletic. “That’s kind of been the beauty of doing Monday night. Everything’s buttoned up except for your game. That’s a huge difference from doing Thursday night. When you’re doing Thursday night and you’re talking playoff picture, there’s a lot more undecided. You’ve got a lot of playoff implications and scenarios that have been eliminated by the time we go on the air on a Monday. So I watch them all the time, and I’m proud of them.”
Buck admitted that he doesn’t really know Greg Olsen, but that he and Kevin Burkhardt are good friends and talk often. He says he made time to help prepare Burkhardt for the work culture of America’s Game of the Week.
“At least from where I sit, me leaving Fox all ended on a great note. I think Fox got what they wanted, and ESPN got what they wanted. The trades that you make in sports, if they help both teams, then it’s a great trade.”
As much as Joe Buck wants FOX to succeed, he did say that last week was a good reminder of why going to ESPN was such an attractive proposition. Not only is he calling a single game each week, but he also isn’t working on major holidays.
“Come the holidays when I’m at home with my boys and they’re unwrapping presents and I’m watching Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen do a game on TV, part of me is like, ‘That was my former life.’ But the majority of me is like, ‘Man, this feels good that I get this time at home.’”
