Troy Aikman’s no stranger to big broadcasts, but his Chiefs-Broncos call on Monday Night Football had fans doing a double take. He just couldn’t stop handing out praise to every other player, position group, or coach at some point.
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It got so noticeable that Dan Le Batard noted instances of Aikman dishing out praise after praise in the game. Simply put, it was a lot.
“ESPN has the Super Bowl this year, this is what Troy Aikman said,” Le Batard said on his show. “‘The Denver roster is as deep as any in football, [Andy] Reid understands as much as anyone in football that they’ve got to run the football, Pat Bryant had as good a camp as anyone in football, Denver has as deep a wide receiver room as anyone in football, Denver has as good a secondary as there is in all of football, Trent McDuffie is as good as anyone in all of football.’ That was the first quarter.”
He kept going. Aikman also found time to praise Denver’s offensive line, Vance Joseph, Riley Moss, Sean Payton, and Courtland Sutton, all within that same stretch of football. Le Batard’s reaction pretty much summed up what a lot of viewers were thinking.
“I didn’t believe it,” he said after running through the examples. “Like, I’m like, that can’t be how I’m hearing this.”
He even started wondering if he was somehow misreading the whole thing.
“I went back and watched the first half and just took all of those notes,” Le Batard added. “I did not watch the second half of that football game because, am I hearing this right? Is this what’s happening here, where it’s just everyone in this game, and the next game, and everyone Aikman does is as good as anyone in football?”
The problem is, Denver’s performance itself didn’t really back any of it up. Kansas City walked away with a 31-10 win, holding Denver to just 176 total yards and a brutal 2-for-12 on third down. The wide receivers Aikman glazed about dropped multiple catches. WRs Pat Bryant and Jaylen Waddle both dropped important passes which would have kept the Broncos fighting.
The Broncos’ defense was extremely concerning. The lack of a run defense was clear as star Chiefs RB Kenneth Walker ran amok, posting a whopping 173 yards on the ground. Denver also gave up a whopping 248 missed-tackle yards, per ESPN NFL Next Gen Stats.
One doesn’t have to look at numbers to see how bad Denver really was. Fans online weren’t holding back either.
“Dan is (100 emoji) here, and this is why I was rage tweeting last night. Aikman is awful. Absolutely awful,” one wrote.
Another didn’t mince words.
“Troy Aikman is a f’ing joke announcer. The dudes needs to go. Brings absolutely ZERO to the table,” another fan posted on X.
“I turned down the volume for this same reason. Aikman is the worst. Joe Buck is close,” another comment read.
“This is why I watch the Manningcast,” one fan wrote. “The Buck/Aikman combo is garbage.
“Aikman was an average qb and an even worse analyst. He and Joe are a perfectly terrible tandem.”
Aikman also caught heat for constantly bringing up the humidity while Bo Nix and the Broncos struggled to hang onto the football.
Nix fumbled three times, finished just 17-of-28 for 131 yards with a touchdown and an interception, and got sacked four times. It’s no surprise Bleacher Report’s Brent Sobleski gave him an F grade in his Week 1 report card, one of only four quarterbacks to land there. The others there were Matthew Stafford, Drake Maye, and Deshaun Watson.
Aikman’s still ESPN’s guy for Monday nights, and with Joe Buck, they make the longest-tenured announcer duo. They are set to call the network’s first Super Bowl this season. Whether this kind of scrutiny follows him through the year is anyone’s guess.