Recently, a group of Seattle Seahawks fans started a petition to keep Fox Sports commentators Joe Buck and Troy Aikman from calling any future Seahawks games.
From the petition:
“Hey 12th man are you sick of Troy Aikman and Joe Buck ruining our games? Reporting should never be biased, so why does former Cowboys QB Troy Aikman and his partner Joe Buck always get Cowboys game and why are they able to announce any Seahawks games when they obviously dislike the entire organization?”
Well, let’s just go ahead and file this under “dumbest things ever.”
I’m not entirely sure where this is coming from. I watched the game last Sunday, and I noticed several times when Buck and Aikman were praising the Seahawks. Some of the notable calls that had fans upset involved Aikman and Buck praising Dallas Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant for making a smart play. Cowboys quarterback Matt Cassel underthrew Bryant by a good margin, leaving Seattle corner Richard Sherman in a prime position to intercept the pass. Bryant switched from receiver more to defensive back mode, and got his hand in there to break up the would-be interception. This was a smart, heads up play by Bryant, and he should have been commended for his efforts.
At another point in the game, Aikman was pointing out how Seattle had beaten Dallas’ defense two plays in a row on a seam pass to tight end Luke Wilson. Aikman states, and I’m paraphrasing here, that Dallas typically does better in man coverage, and Seattle happened to catch them in a zone. Seattle capitalized on Dallas’ mistakes for two big completions. Doesn’t sound very anti-Seahawks to me, does it?
Some fans may have a hard time swallowing this, but the “nobody respects us,” narrative is dead. Seattle was a sub .500 team up until week 8, yet they still consistently were above, or near the top ten in most power rankings.
To pretend the Seahawks haven’t had issues this season is nothing short of ignorance. Seattle has allowed more sacks than any other team. Sure, Seattle didn’t allow any sacks last week against Dallas, however they still have allowed three more than the next closest team.
The job of a broadcaster on a nationally televised team is to point these out. Troy Aikman is an analyst. He literally is paid to offer commentary. If you want announcers who will just blow smoke up your you-know-what, then you should probably stick to the local radio broadcasts.
To be fair, this isn’t the first time that fans have petitioned FOX to remove Joe Buck from a broadcast. During the MLB ALCS, fans in Kansas City also started a petition to remove Buck from the calling any baseball games. Buck caught wind of that, and had a little fun with it.
The point is, this petition is stupid. Buck and Aikman are far from my favorite commentators, but to sit here and pretend that there is this anti-Seahawk mentality among them is asinine. I’m sure nobody in Seattle would be complaining if these two announcers were biased towards the Seahawks, that would be perfectly ok, right? This petition is dumb. Fans are dumb.
