Joe Buck was just 52 years old when he gave up being MLB’s lead national voice, but he has no plans of stepping away from the NFL anytime soon.
Buck joined Barstool Sports’ Pardon My Take with hosts Dan “Big Cat” Katz and PFT Commenter (Eric Sollenberger) this week to discuss the start of the NFL season. And during the interview, Big Cat asked Buck how many years he has left, noting it will be a big loss for football whenever he decides to retire.
Luckily for NFL fans who share Big Cat’s sentiment, it seems like we won’t have to worry about that for a while.
“I don’t know. 10 years, 12 years, 15 years?” said Buck. “I’m not gonna do the ‘man makes plans and God laughs.’ I have no idea, I could get hit by a bus getting out of here.”
Joe Buck has been a prominent voice in sports for more than 30 years and he’s been a lead NFL announcer for more than two decades. But he’s still just 56 years old! As long as Buck isn’t feeling burned out, his sportscasting career should have a lot of years left.
Maybe it was giving up baseball, maybe it was the move to ESPN, or maybe it’s a combination of the two, whatever it is, Joe Buck has undoubtedly sounded rejuvenated in recent years. He keeps his emotions in check when calling a game, but he sounds more jovial doing Monday Night Football with Troy Aikman than when they were at Fox.
He’s still in his announcing prime, he’s making more money for less work and he’s on the verge of getting back in the Super Bowl rotation, which he’s admittedly very excited about. Why would anyone rush to put an expiration date on that? Unless he gets hit by a bus, it sounds like Joe Buck will be joining football fans every Monday during the NFL season for a long time to come. And that’s a great thing for the NFL.