I enjoy life’s simple pleasures; things like a good sandwich, a cold beer, and a Sunday without hearing Joe Buck’s voice. While the first two pleasures are always in play, Vikings fans will have to live without the third two weeks in a row. Somehow, despite a clear public sentiment against Mr. Buck, he and the eternally-concussed Troy Aikman remain FOX’s #1 football commentating crew. While Aikman is never going to be confused for a young John Madden in the booth, I really have no problem with the work he does. Even though there are a couple of moments in each game where Troy seems to lose his train of thought and starts repeating the same thing over and over again for 30 seconds, he is pretty much what a color-commentator is supposed to be. Aikman does a good job of offering up the kind of information that can really only come from someone who’s played the game at the highest level. While I believe there are better color guys in football (Cris Collinsworth, Ron Jaworski, and Jon Gruden, to name a few), Aikman does just fine. Buck, on the other hand, is a different story.
My distain for Joe Buck started to take shape near the end of the Vikings/Packers playoff game at Lambeau Field in 2005. After Randy Moss caught his second TD to pretty much put the game away, he infamously pretended to “moon” the crowd. I repeat: Moss pretended to moon the crowd. Joe Buck couldn’t have been more outraged. You can watch his reaction to the act here. I found Buck’s reaction to be over-the-top, to say the least. With all the horrors in our world, a wide receiver pretending to pull his pants down (the act was in homage to a regular post-game antic of Packer fans when the visiting team’s bus was leaving the complex) is what gets Buck’s panties all in a bunch? Please. With this seemingly insignificant moment in a Wild Card playoff game, Buck became persona non grata to me forever. The ensuing years have only done more to fuel my dislike for him, both as a commentator and as a person.
Strike two against Buck occurred last June when Buck’s HBO variety show (deftly titled “Joe Buck Live”) invited the raunchy comedian Artie Lange to be a guest on the debut episode. If you are unfamiliar with Lange’s work, he is the most degenerate member of the Howard Stern crew, which is really saying something. He is also the star of the straight-to-DVD classic “Beer League.” Since Buck and his show crew were well aware of Lange’s comedic styling, they should have expected nothing less than a controversial appearance. Ultimately, that is exactly what “Joe Buck Live” got from Artie, as you can see for yourself here. Afterward, Buck and HBO each acted as though they were completely shocked that Artie Lange, of all people, would act in a less than savory manner. The outrage shown by Buck and the network was ridiculous because they knew exactly what Lange was going to do. I believe that Buck and HBO had planned that Lange would do something so crazy that it would create instant buzz for the show, while at the same time providing Buck an opportunity to hop back up on his soap box and condemn this “outlandish” behavior. Lange even goes as far as saying that “JBL” producers instructed him to “go nuts” if fellow guests Paul Rudd and Jason Sudeikis got boring. Lange was subsequently banned from appearing on any future HBO Sports productions. The entire charade stinks of a set-up to me, which leads me to believe that Buck is nothing more than a fake wannabe media mogul .
I was able to avoid watching Buck for a good chunk of the 2009-10 season. With my Vikings typically playing the noon game on FOX, if I was going to be subjected to Buck and Aikman, it was going to be during a random late afternoon game. The 3pm games typically only interest me if I have fantasy football players in it, so I tend to only “half” pay attention to them. Last week, however, I was subjected to a solid 3-hour block of Buck and Aikman as the Vikes took on the Cowboys. For someone who gets paid to watch and describe football action, Buck always seems like he has something better he could be doing during the game. His level of excitement typically falls somewhere between a six year old child before a dentist visit and a dog right before a bath. Buck had the opportunity to call one of the great plays in NFL history when the Giants’ WR David Tyree came down with an unbelievable catch on 4th down during what proved to be the game-winning drive for the G-Men in Super Bowl XLII. Here is what the ever-creative Buck did with that call. Feel the excitement, folks. During last Sunday’s Vikings/Cowboys game, Buck put up another great performance. As the game dragged on and the Vikings gained a firm grip on things, Buck became noticeably disinterested in the game. Aikman reacted similarly towards the end of the game, but being that Troy won three Super Bowls with the Cowboys, his displeasure with the outcome of this game was understandable. I believe FOX did Aikman a great disservice by putting him in a situation where he had to call that game by placing him squarely between a rock and a hard place. Aikman is naturally going to have a hard time being unbiased while working a game involving his former team. Buck, on the other hand, has no such allegiances to either squad and therefore should have been able to remain on his game throughout the contest. Instead, he was so out of it by the end of the game that he missed a golden opportunity to rant and rave about the Vikings running up the score on Dallas when Favre threw the TD to Shiancoe with under two minutes left. This was very out of character for Buck and in my view proved that he wasn’t really paying attention anymore. Luckily, the game ended, and my day with Buck did, as well.
Unfortunately, Buck and Aikman will be back on the job at the Superdome on Sunday when the Vikings travel south to play the Saints. While Aikman’s conflict of interest will no longer be an issue, Buck’s ineptitude will. I would say that I am hoping for a close game that will hold JB’s interest throughout, but I’m not sure that will be enough for him. Thankfully for all us football fans, Sunday’s game will be Buck’s last of the season. FOX doesn’t have the Super Bowl this year, so the NFL’s biggest game of the year will not be an embarrassment of commentating like it was two years ago. Just as fortunately, Buck can only ruin one game per week, leaving us with 15 others watchable games during the regular season.
My advice to all of you looking for a way to lessen the effect of Buck on Sunday is to enjoy the hell out of Jim Nance during the early game. Nance may tell stories about how Mark Sanchez sat in the crowd at a football game once, and he may be dull enough to act as a stand-in for Ritalin, but for this week, he’s all we’ve got.
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