Sports Publications

Aikman: the hair apparent

Sporting News, The, Sept 2, 2002

John Madden shuffling off to Monday Night Football really, really rocked the NFL announcing industry. You can tell because Troy Aikman has a Mohawk on his head.

Appearing in costume in promos is one of the responsibilities in filling Maddens shoes on Fox's A-team (whoops, one shoe; Cris Collinsworth is "co-lead analyst"). "This is Fox's approach," Aikman says, with just a touch of bemusement.

The new approach to best-in-the-biz broadcasts--a generation was reared on Pat Summerall-`n'-Madden doing NFC biggies Sundays at 4--is a threesome, starring Aikman, Collinsworth and Joe Buck's play-by-play. Fox's hand, of course, was forced by the MaddenCruiser leaving town. Which begat a chain reaction at all the networks, and after reaching critical mass, most game-announce combos and every studio show's talent had been at least superficially recast, whether they needed to be or not.

Fox's gambit is riskiest. Adding Collinsworth meant subtracting from Fox NIL Sunday, a cash cow. Fox's A-team gamers will be the youngest in networkdom. They form the most intriguing trio since Cosell-Meredith-Gifford (Aikman is cast as Don Meredith, down to the twang and Big D-pedigree). But Buck and Collinsworth didn't even spend all of last season in the booth, and Aikman is just a sophomore. At this stage of his career, Madden was an F-teamer. Would you have given these guys keys to the car, with billions in rights fees and the NFL's consistently highest ratings at stake?

I have reservations. I sense Aikman does too. He speaks resignedly about being separated him from his first Fox partners, Dick Stockton and especially Daryl Johnston, the old Cowboys fullback who literally has been behind Aikman for decades. Asked if he deserved a promotion to first string after one year of broadcasting, Aikman says, "Probably not. I wasn't the most deserving to start my rookie season in Dallas, either."

Yet this could be the next American Idol. Along with his name and charisma, Aikman brings qualities not always associated with the TV jockocracy, such as credibility and teamwork. Buck already is waxing about Aikman, and the badinage with Collinsworth in exhibitions sounded comfy. Also, out of Aikman's honest mug comes a startling willingness to criticize players and coaches: "I'm opinionated, not critical. But I'm not naive. Usually a good play on one end means there's a bad play on the other end."

Analytically, Aikman is a (hair)cut above. In July, listing what David Carr will learn about quarterbacking, Aikman wrote in the Houston Chronicle: "The difference between a receiver being open in the NFL is far different than one being open in college. In the NFL, if your receiver has one step on a defensive back, he's open." Days later, in his MNF debut, Madden mused, "David Carr learned a lot about the NFL tonight. He learned all his receivers need is one step on the defender to be open."