Fox Wanted to Pair Joe Buck With Tom Brady

ESPN and Fox each took different home run swings with their respective NFL broadcasting booths over the last few months. Fox shoved all their chips to the middle with an all-in bet on Tom Brady, giving the future Hall of Famer an utterly massive deal to come straight to the booth once he hangs up the cleats for good. ESPN, in turn, stole Fox's longtime No. 1 football booth by signing Troy Aikman and then Joe Buck to take on the Monday Night Football mantle.

It was quite a month of movement in the NFL broadcasting game and the money handed out was unlike anything we've ever seen. It also could've turned out differently. Buck joined Stugotz and Mike Ryan on the Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz in Lake Tahoe this past weekend and said Fox threw out the idea of pairing him up with Brady before Buck ultimately left for ESPN.

"They floated that to me before I left," Buck said. "I didn't think it was completely realistic. I'm still not 100 percent sure... I expect him to be great because he's great at everything. But I think what you said before with staying with Troy [Aikman], it's a known quantity for me at 53 years-old at a place that's now got Super Bowls. I'd rather take the known person and somebody I enjoy working with."

What a power duo those two would've been in the booth. But you can see why Buck wasn't so taken with the potential pairing that he put all his other plans aside. Nobody really knows when Brady is actually going to retire. Maybe not even Fox. And broadcasting is hard! Brady will probably be fine because he's Tom Brady and is good at everything, like Buck said, but there's zero guarantee he's going to become a media superstar from Day 1.

Still, fun to imagine Buck and Brady on Sundays.