Troy Aikman and Joe Buck have called hundreds of NFL games together, but it was a Valentine’s Day plan for 2027 that turned heads during the Chargers–Eagles Monday Night Football broadcast. Aikman was in the booth alongside his co-commentator Joe Buck, as an announcement for the upcoming Super Bowl venues was made. Reacting to this news, the Dallas Cowboys legend jokingly shared his plans.

“You’re going to be my date on Valentine’s Day,” Aikman told Joe Buck, referring to ESPN’s first Super Bowl broadcast on February 14, 2027, at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.

ESPN is part of the Super Bowl rotation after a new NFL broadcast deal in 2021, securing the rights to broadcast the game after the 2026 and 2030 seasons. This milestone follows ESPN’s signing of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman to a multi-year contract in 2022, making them the lead broadcast team for Monday Night Football and positioning them for the Super Bowl broadcast.

Super Bowl LXI will also be the first time ABC has carried the game since Super Bowl XL in 2006 and the first Super Bowl ESPN has ever aired, with a full simulcast planned across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2’s Manningcast, plus streaming on Disney-owned platforms.

Coming back to the Chargers-Eagles game, jokes on the broadcast didn’t stop with the Valentine’s Day comment, as Joe Buck then asked Aikman if he knew which teams would feature in the Big Game in 2027.

“Have you seen the script? Do you know who’s going to play in that one yet?” quipped Joe Buck. His “script” jab was a tongue-in-cheek nod to the now-constant “NFL is scripted” meme that blew up after former Pro Bowler Arian Foster jokingly claimed on a 2023 podcast that players get a season-long “script” at training camp, a conspiracy theory players and the league have mostly mocked ever since.

These fun interactions are a staple of every Aikman-Buck broadcast, which was nicknamed “The A Team” when they joined Cris Collinsworth to form Fox’s top NFL broadcast crew in 2002. Since then, the duo has been the voice of NFL Sundays and now Monday nights for close to 24 years.

Officially, Buck and Aikman are now the longest-tenured TV broadcast tandem in NFL history, having started together on Fox’s “A Team” with Cris Collinsworth in 2002 and going on to call more than 300 regular-season games, over 40 playoff matchups, and six Super Bowls as a pair.

However, this incredible broadcasting journey could have come to a sudden shutdown, as revealed by Troy Aikman in a recent podcast appearance, where he recalled how he was on the verge of retiring from the media.

When Troy Aikman nearly retired from broadcasting

Troy Aikman concluded his Hall of Fame career in 2000, having won three Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys and cementing his legacy as a bona fide icon of the sport. Since then, he has been a staple of the NFL broadcast, emerging as one of the most poignant voices in the media. But this second career was on the verge of an end in 2008.

Recently, during an appearance on Sports Media with Richard Deitsch, the Cowboys legend shared that he once considered retiring from broadcasting after Super Bowl XLII. It was a historic game as the New York Giants shocked the 16-0 New England Patriots.

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Aikman and Buck were on that call for Fox, watching Eli Manning hit Plaxico Burress for the game-winning touchdown that ruined New England’s bid for a perfect 19-0 season, only the second Super Bowl they’d ever worked together and just their sixth year as a team in the booth.

“It was a tremendous Super Bowl, it was a great finish…it was a historical game,” Aikman revealed. “And yet, after the game, I don’t know that I felt more empty than I did at that moment in my life. And I just thought, ‘Wow, if this is how I feel, maybe I’m in the wrong profession.’ I didn’t do anything to address that. I didn’t go into the offseason thinking anything differently, but I did think at that moment, maybe I should be doing something else.”

Fortunately for NFL fans, Troy Aikman didn’t move forward with his decision and continued his career, becoming one of the most accomplished broadcasters in the sport. Now the legendary quarterback will headline the coverage of ESPN‘s first Super Bowl in 2027.