Over his three decades as an NFL play-by-play man, Joe Buck has steadily found his voice and comfort in his own skin. But getting to that point was a process, as the son of legendary broadcaster Jack Buck, he wasn’t always sure of what tone he should take and how seriously he should take himself.
Now, he and Troy Aikman make up arguably the best broadcast booth in football for ESPN’s Monday Night Football, in large part because they strike the right balance of not taking themselves too seriously, but are still able to bring the right gravitas to a call in a big moment. It took Buck awhile to loosen up in the booth, and the all-time example of him being far too uptight is when he was paired with Cris Collinsworth for a Vikings-Packers playoff game in Green Bay and Randy Moss celebrated a touchdown by pretending to moon Packers fans.
Buck’s “that is a DISGUSTING act” call has lived on forever, and it’s the one he wishes he could take back. As he explained to Kevin Clark on This Is Football, that’s the easy answer for the thing he would do over in his career, citing how great Randy Moss has been to he and his wife and that he didn’t know the backstory of Packers fans mooning the Vikings team bus in the moment.
We ask every guest what play they’d like to have back. The call Joe Buck wants back? Easy. The Randy Moss “That’s a disgusting act” call against the Packers.
“The more time that goes on the more I think ‘man I can’t believe that ever came out of my mouth.'” WATCH: pic.twitter.com/1k5n0TH45m— Kevin Clark (@bykevinclark) January 24, 2024
It’s one that Buck cringes at every time it plays back, as he can’t believe that came out of his mouth, but it certainly served as a bit of a learning experience for him. Once overly self-serious, Buck now happily pokes fun at himself and the banter between he and Aikman makes their broadcast among the best in the NFL, and that shift likely started after having to hear back his call of Moss’ celebration two decades ago.