A couple of times a year, Joe Buck heads to Monday Night Football, on these occasions in a much different role than his usual one calling play-by-play for Fox. He visits to support his wife, Michelle Beisner-Buck, a features reporter for ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown the last four seasons.
Buck is careful not to seem overzealous or too comfortable on the sideline those visits because it is, after all, ESPN’s set and ESPN’s show and Buck is the face of Fox’s NFL and MLB coverage.
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Recent trips have followed a similar routine. Buck stands on the sideline as Michelle preps for her live hit on the show. Buck usually gives a wave to the set where the show is ongoing.
And without fail, Randy Moss, an analyst for the network since 2016, jumps out of his chair as soon as a commercial break comes. Early-arriving fans see Moss unclip his earpiece and walk toward Buck.
Most don’t need a reminder of the history between the two. They know that 15 years ago, Buck infamously called Moss’ mimicked mooning of Packers fans during a playoff game at Lambeau Field “a disgusting act.” They know that Buck said it was “unfortunate we had that on our air live” after Moss’ celebration of that touchdown reception in the Vikings’ wild-card round win.
But as Moss nears Buck on these visits, he throws his long arms out. Moss gives Buck a big hug and the two catch up, unlikely friends connected forever by an unfortunate sentence. Moss was friends with Michelle first, then Joe. Now Moss and Buck have built such a kinship that their chats linger through commercial breaks. They talk often of a potential getaway together in the offseason.
“They have a really good rapport,” Michelle said. “Just because of that brief moment in mooning history, people might think they wouldn’t be friendly with one another. But Joe and Randy are always kind of yucking it up on the sideline — to the point where I’m like, ‘Hey babe, I’m going to do my hit here. Do you want to come over to where I am?’”
There was no indication as Buck left Lambeau Field that night in January 2005, that it was a game he’d forever have to discuss. Such was the bliss of pre-Twitter life. Still, the details of the week and the criticism that followed the call are admittedly a bit hazy for Buck.
“I’ve probably repressed some of these memories and blocked them out,” he joked. (Click here to listen to the full interview with Buck.)
By the middle of the week, Buck was a subject on debate shows and in New York Post articles. He did national interviews to try to quell the reaction, but that didn’t work. Then-Vikings owner Red McCombs released a statement proclaiming that Fox should remove Buck from the upcoming Vikings-Eagles divisional-round game because Buck’s work “suggested a prejudice that surpassed objective reporting.”
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In response, a Fox spokesman said, “We hope Mr. McCombs enjoys Joe’s play-by-play call Sunday, because he’ll be in the booth.”
“I was kind of surprised that the reaction was what it was, to be honest with you — that I was kind of the guy in the crosshairs,” Buck said. “But you kind of live and learn and grow and understand things a little bit better.”
All these years later, Buck isn’t quite sure how to look back at the call. In one sense, he concedes he probably emphasized the wording wrong or chose the wrong words altogether. In another sense, he learned a lot as a 35-year-old then about how to handle criticism, which makes it difficult to flatly say now that he would take it back if he could.
“On the one hand, I cringe a little at the way I reacted because — and I’m just giving you my honest feel on this 15 years later — I cringe on it because I think it had a big exclamation point on it by me,” Buck said. “And I think I could have probably sloughed it off a little bit better than I did. But on the other hand, I’m kind of happy that I had a real reaction live on TV. I think that whatever Randy did, and it wasn’t just the mooning thing, it was up against the goalpost that kind of, I think, hit me wrong. I think all I can do is just kind of trust my honest gut reaction and if I have the gall to say it out loud, sometimes you have to live with what comes out of your mouth. I don’t have the big delete button to take something back and I’m not certain that I would. It was what it was.”
Moss’s mooning celebration came after a touchdown that put the Vikings up 31-17 over Green Bay in the fourth quarter. Minnesota went on to win the first-ever playoff game between the rivals. (Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images)
His comments were debated on pregame shows leading into the next week’s playoff game. About everyone except for CBS’s Boomer Esiason blasted Buck. But Buck decided he wouldn’t address it at that opening of the Vikings-Eagles game.
“You just move on,” Buck said. “I think the more attention you draw to it, the more you kind of feel like you’re making it about yourself. He got his fine and “straight cash homie” and all that other stuff. I think he kind of enjoyed all that stuff, to be honest with you. He and I have never had any heart-to-heart about it. Because I just, again, I don’t think he really cared then and I’m sure he doesn’t care now. He’s on ESPN, and when they lead to ‘You Got Mossed’, that little clip is a part of their video montage that introduces him on the air. So it’s not like anybody’s hiding from it.
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“I could go on and on about this. The reaction was, ‘Well, that’s what the Packers fans do to the Vikings players when they’re on the bus on their way into the stadium and they moon them or whatever.’ I just felt like if I’m sitting on the couch with my kid, that’s probably not something that I think should just go by untalked about. But, again, I think it needed to be said better by me. I don’t know. Whether it’s that or a touchdown call or a home run call or whatever it is, whatever comes out of your mouth you have to live with.”
Vikings fans especially were appalled by the call. For once, their team had the flashy superstar and they were going to defend him. They mocked Buck and to this day still tweet “That’s disgusting” to him when Buck calls Vikings games. But Buck insists what he hears from Vikings fans isn’t worse than any other fanbase.
“To me, Minnesota, the Twin Cities feels very much like where I live (St. Louis),” Buck said. “It feels very Midwest, which I think is the best compliment I can pay any area because that’s where I’m from. I think the people there are really good people. …
“I appreciate that people care. … It would be the worst thing in the world if people didn’t care. They’re protective of their own guy, and I completely understand that. I understood that then and I certainly understand that 15 years later. If you’re a fan, you can complain and moan and groan about your team all day long, but the minute somebody who’s not from there does it, well then, you’re the outsider and they’ll come get ya. So hopefully all was made well with the Stefon Diggs touchdown call a couple years ago. And beyond that, most of it’s all in good fun anyway. … Being the national guy, I’m not really with anybody except Fox. But you’re always kind of perceived as the guy who’s against everybody and nothing could be further from the truth. I don’t even think like that.”
Moss never made it seem like he cared too much about the call. He, of course, went on to become a first-ballot Hall of Famer, the first receiver to accomplish that since Jerry Rice.
After retiring in 2012, Moss joined Fox as an analyst. The network wanted to introduce their newest hire, so they decided to have him join remotely a preseason game Buck was broadcasting.
“Immediately, I’m thinking, ‘OK, this could be really awkward,’” Buck said. “And he came on and I was like, well the last thing I’m going to do is act like nothing happened. I’m bringing this up.”
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The interview began as normal and Buck asked about the New York Giants, the team that was playing that night. They chatted like normal for a few minutes.
“And at the end, I said, ‘You know, Randy, you and I have a bit of a history,’” Buck said. “And he kind of laughed back. And I can’t really see him, I can only hear him in my headset. And he laughed. And I said, ‘You know about that, right?’ I wasn’t even sure if he knew I was the guy who said it. And he’s like, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ I said, ‘We good?’ He goes, ‘Man, you said what you said. I did what I did. We’re all good, man. All good.’ And he was laughing about it. So I said, ‘Alright, we’re all good. Just want to make that clear right now going forward. We’re all good.’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ And I think he was being honest. I don’t think he was upset (in 2005) and I sure as hell don’t think he was upset (in 2013).”
Moss didn’t respond to request through ESPN for comment for this story. He did have a comical dig at Buck’s call during one of Monday Night Countdown’s ‘C’Mon Man!’ segments this season. As highlights were shown of LSU quarterback Joe Burrow’s pants being pulled down in a game this season, Moss yelled, “What a disgusting act!”
Randy Moss yelling “WHAT A DISGUSTING ACT” 💀 pic.twitter.com/HShXZj3WNt
— Adam Stites (@AdamStites_) October 22, 2019
Moss moved to ESPN in 2016, the same year Michelle Beisner-Buck moved to the Monday Night Countdown team. As a reporter, she had been around big-name players, so there wasn’t much intimidation to being on set with guys like Steve Young and Matt Hasselbeck, as much as she respected them.
But she remembers being awed at first by Moss. Her parents grew up in Minnesota and met at Minnesota State. While they raised her in Colorado, she was always a Vikings fan and cheered on Moss as a player. As a kid, her parents brought her and her brother back to Minnesota each summer for fishing and visits to their aunt and uncle’s cabin.
“My parents were very smart and never took us to Minnesota during the winter months,” Michelle said.
So during her first show in 2016, she asked Moss for a selfie, and as he gave a thumbs-up, they laughed about how they both have double-jointed thumbs. They talked about their shared interest in fishing. And then Michelle told Moss that she was married to Buck.
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“And he was like, ‘Oh yeah? Cool, great,’” Michelle said. “There was no beef, if you will, between them.”
Buck watched during his trips to the ESPN set how Michelle and Moss interacted. The whole crew on set has been great, Michelle said. But Moss stands out to Buck.
“He’s just a good dude,” Buck said. “He has no reason to go out of his way to be nice to her and then extend the pleasantries to me. … But every time I go there, he’s the first guy to pop off that set, come down and give me a big hug. He treats Michelle great. He’s just a good person. I think everybody grows and everybody learns, and everybody evolves. I certainly have. …
“I don’t know how he feels about that moment in his career, but I do know that as far as people that greet me with a smile that played in the league, he’s right at the top of the list. It means a lot to me. I don’t know if it even registers with him. But it means a lot to me 15 years later.”
Moss and Michelle will be in town, of course, for Monday Night Football between the Packers and Vikings. Buck couldn’t make this trip. But a few weeks ago, Moss again made a request of Joe and Michelle.
A year earlier, he told them he wanted to take them on a fishing vacation.
“I told him not to invite us unless he was really serious,” Michelle said.
Moss invited them again this year. He’s serious, he told them. Michelle and Joe want to take him up on the offer this offseason.
“I don’t know what we’re fishing for,” Buck said. “But I’ll have a hat with lures on it. And maybe then we’ll talk about the mooning in Green Bay.”
(Top photo: Morry Gash / AP photo)
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