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NFL analyst Troy Aikman inside a collection of arrows
Dallas Cowboys legend Troy Aikman has been a fixture of NFL broadcasts for the past 25 years, picking up his second career calling games after retiring from football in 2001. By and large, he is among the biggest names in NFL broadcasting and alongside Joe Buck they are the voices of Monday Night Football for ABC / ESPN.
Earlier this week, Dan Le Batard called out Troy Aikman‘s broadcasting on MNF. Le Betard pointed out how Aikman constantly uses the same phrases and talking points, over and over and over, and Dan’s clip went viral. From there, people began to connect the dots even further!
Troy Aikman Finally Being Called Out For Lazily Repeating His Favorite Phrases
First up, here is the clip from The Dan Le Batard Show where Dan quotes Troy. Dan’s framing of Troy Aikman’s broadcasting is damning enough but the compilation down below is next level.
Troy Aikman was throwing around superlatives like crazy on the MNF broadcast pic.twitter.com/UHNToBjEn0
— The Dan Le Batard Show (@LeBatardShow) September 15, 2026
‘As anyone in football’ is a phrase used so often by Troy Aikman it should be permanently retired. Keep in mind that ABC/ESPN pays Aikman around $18 million per year for his Monday Night Football duties alongside Joe Buck. Troy’s contract is also set to expire and be up for renewal following the conclusion of the Super Bowl in February 2027.
This next clip was shared on X by Ben Koo of AwfulAnnouncing and it splices together Troy’s own wrds, repeating himself, time and again. In real-time it is easy to pick up on how Aikman sounds like a broken record but when the clip is edited like this to put the sound bytes back-to-back it really shows how egregiously one-dimensional Troy’s analysis has become:
Courtesy of @MitchPantherFan's TikTok https://t.co/BTs5qufSVM pic.twitter.com/tFe4YfJ7oh
— Ben Koo (@bkoo) September 16, 2026
If you were an employer, would you want to pay someone $18 million per year to repeat the same phrases over and over? With that said, there is no reason to assume that ABC/ESPN won’t renew Troy’s contract after the Super Bowl in February 2027 and he will presumably get a pay raise given that he has been a fixture on the network for decades. At some point, however, someone needs to address whether or not the fans deserve better.