ESPN’s Troy Aikman didn’t make any Eagles fans Monday night
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Two weeks ago, ESPN Monday Night Football analyst Troy Aikman was forced to apologize after fuming that the NFL needed to “take the dresses off” when it comes to roughing the passer.
Aikman didn’t have that same indignation last night, when a questionable roughing the passer penalty against Brandon Graham with just 1:38 remaining sealed the game for the Washington Commanders, earning the Eagles their first loss of the season.
During the play, Commanders quarterback Taylor Heinicke decided to kneel down after scrambling to find an open receiver on third down. Graham attempted to pull up, but was unable to stop his momentum and slid into Heinicke, knocking him over and drawing a roughing-the-passer penalty.
Aikman said he had sympathy for Graham, but ultimately agreed with ESPN rules analyst and former NFL official John Parry that the referees made the correct call.
“Tough call,” Aikman said during Monday night’s broadcast. “It’s the right call, but you can see he gave himself up … It looks like [Graham] is trying to hold up at the end of this and not hurt him.”
“The head and neck is protected. He does give himself up. It is a foul, by rule,” Parry added.
Referee Alex Kemp explained the penalty further following the game, saying in a pool report he had ruled that Heinicke “had clearly given himself up.”
“Therefore, he is down and a defenseless player,” Kemp said. “The contact by [Graham] was not only late but also to the head and neck area.”
Following the game, Aikman discussed the penalty further with SportsCenter host Scott Van Pelt. While Aikman still felt like the referees made the correct call, he said he was unsatisfied by the outcome.
“It was the right call, as far as how the rule reads, but you just don’t walk away from the game feeling all that great about it,” Aikman said. “It’s clear Brandon Graham wasn’t doing anything malicious, but it is what it is.”
Last month, after admitting his misogynistic “take the dresses off” comment was “dumb,” Aikman reiterated his call for the NFL’s Competition Committee to take a look at the overabundance of questionable roughing the passer penalties called this season.
“I’m totally in favor of the protection that the quarterbacks are afforded, and all players for that matter. But there’s no question there has been over-enforcement of the protection for quarterbacks,” Aikman, a Hall of Fame quarterback himself, said during an appearance on Dallas sports talk radio.
It would’ve been interesting to hear what either Peyton or Eli Manning thought of the call, but the duo skipped out on their ESPN2 alternately Monday Night Football telecast last night — the second time they’ve ghosted the Eagles this season.
Earlier in the game, Aikman did get more animated about a call that went against the Commanders. Aikman wasn’t happy that receiver Jahan Dotson was called for offensive pass interference after clearly running a route designed to pick off Eagles defender James Bradberry, who was in man-to-man coverage.
“That’s obstructing,” Parry explained. “I get the route, but he’s got to avoid the guy rather than create the contact by the defender.”
“I disagree with that,” Aikman shot back. “I don’t think he created it. I think he’s running a route.”
While he didn’t make many Eagles fans last night, at least Aikman was being consistent. During the Eagles’ Week 2 victory over the Minnesota Vikings, Aikman has no problem criticizing the referees after wide receiver DeVonta Smith was called for offensive pass interference.
“I think that’s a bad call … He gets out of the way,” Aikman said of Smith. “That’s not a good call at all.”
» READ MORE: Marcus Hayes: Officials cost the Eagles an undefeated season
ESPN got in obligatory references to cheesesteaks and ‘Rocky’
No national sports broadcast covering a Philadelphia sports team can resist the urge to mention either cheesesteaks or Sylvester Stallone’s classic 1976 film Rocky in their broadcasts.
ESPN squeezed both into last night’s Monday Night Football telecast as part of two short animated sequences about the Eagles, which featured a unsettling version of Birds head coach Nick Sirianni.
Quick hits
The Eagles hope to turn things around against the Indianapolis Colts (4-5-1) On Sunday, Nov. 20 at 1 p.m. Calling the game for CBS is the network’s No. 2 booth, which features Ian Eagle and Charles Davis.
NBC Sports let go “an unknown number of employees last week,” according to Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand. The cuts were part of larger cost-cutting moves at NBCUniversal, with Comcast looking to cut $1 billion from the budgets of its TV networks.
The Athletic, which has been a source of drama since the New York Times purchased it back in January, has a new top editor. Washington Post managing editor Steven Ginsberg is leaving the paper to run the Athletic, according to Semafor.
Longtime 94.1 WIP host Al Morganti and former Flyers center turned analyst Bill Clement entered the Hockey Hall of Fame Monday night. Morganti, who covered the Flyers for the Inquirer from 1979 to 1989, earned the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award for excellence in hockey journalism.