One of the media stories of the NFL season a year ago was the awkward exchange on Monday Night Football between SportsCenter‘s Scott Van Pelt and play-by-play announcer Joe Buck.
During a segment on SVP’s late-night SportsCenter show, he interviewed Buck and color commentator Troy Aikman following a December Monday Night Football tilt between the Chargers and Colts, a game that L.A. won 20–3.
Buck gave Van Pelt a hard time for asking a couple of questions consecutively to Aikman, and Van Pelt gave it right back to Buck in what appeared to be an awkward, uncomfortable exchange to the viewers. The clip, of course, went viral.
Earlier this week, Buck joined Barstool’s Pardon My Take and addressed the notion that he and Van Pelt have “beef.”
“That was the dumbest thing. It was so funny,” Buck said. “Van Pelt’s like the only guy I knew at ESPN and before I came there, we’ve been at parties together, we had fun, we would text over the years. He would text me stuff during golf and I’d text him stuff I saw on his show. And so now, I always look forward to the after the game little catch-up with Scott because he’s funny and smart.
“And so, I don’t even know where we were…Indianapolis maybe? And he asked me a question, then Troy a question, and then Troy another question and I said something like being a smartass like ‘Whoa am I only getting one question?’ or whatever and he gave it back to me. The fact that became a thing is so funny to both of us that we came really close the next week to just blowing it up and making it absurd like some awful feud. I love Scott so that whole thing was... I see it on Instagram, when it would come through my feed like ‘Oh this is a war I wanna watch. Scott Van Pelt against Joe Buck.’ Nobody wants to see that. Nobody cares. It’s junk.”
Joe Buck addresses his “beef” with SVP@pardonmytake pic.twitter.com/28KOo46yx6
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) July 25, 2023
It turns out the perceived feud between Buck and Van Pelt may not be what it seems after all. Even if there was tension, it’s clear that Buck is downplaying it and the hatchet has been buried.
