Joe Buck and Troy Aikman have reached the stage of their contract drama where even a facial expression gets a film session.

During Monday Night Football, viewers picked apart the longtime partners’ chemistry and wondered whether their reported friction was showing. There was nothing particularly strange about the segment itself. That hardly stopped the internet from trying to read the room.

Troy Aikman and Joe Buck’s Chemistry Comes Under Scrutiny

The attention follows reports oftension between Buck and Aikman over their ESPN contracts. Buck received a six-year extension, while Aikman’s future remains unsettled. Front Office Sports reported that the two argued before the Monday Night Football broadcast in Week 5.

That background has given viewers plenty to chew on whenever the camera finds the booth. Whether Monday’s segment revealed anything about their relationship is entirely speculative. An unsmiling expression offers little evidence of what someone thinks about the person beside them.

Some viewers needed considerably less convincing.

“These two HATE each other and it makes me sad,”one fan wrote.

Another imagined ESPN eventually needing a much wider camera shot.

“You can feel the tension. Troy can’t even fake a smile. Joe and Troy are soon going to be broadcasting games like it’s during COVID: social distanced and away from each other,”another fan added.

“Could cut the tension with a knife between Joe Buck and Troy Aikman,”one viewer wrote.

Those reactions capture how closely people are watching them. They also show how quickly a routine booth appearance can become a referendum on a partnership once reports of trouble are out there.

Viewers Disagree About How Much the Segment Revealed

Others looked at the same appearance and saw less reason to sound the alarm.

“I do get some Troy Aikman looks unhappy vibes here but nothing super strong out of the normal stuff. They are pros and they know to keep anything going on between them off air,”betting analyst Ian Cameron wrote.

There was no obvious confrontation in the segment, and claims that the two hate each other remain viewers’ interpretations.

Still, some were already worried about what the uncertainty could mean for their Super Bowl assignment.

“Amazing how 20+ years of great work with these two side-by-side is going to get obliterated by Disney. I hope they at least pretend to like each other for the Super Bowl, or that’ll be a tough watch,”Jacob Hitz wrote.

Another viewer went straight from body language to career speculation. “Pure disdain from Aikman; he won’t even look at him. CBS is waiting,”one fan wrote.

That CBS suggestion was, again, the fan’s prediction. CBS just signed J.J. Watt to a multi-year extension as its lead analyst, which leaves one less option for Aikman, should he walk away from ESPN after Super Bowl LXI.