Dancing With the Stars fans were expecting Super Bowl Night to bring football and ballroom history together.
But one major casting decision has left some viewers asking why one of the show’s most familiar former faces wasn’t invited back to the judges’ table.
ABC announced that longtime NFL broadcaster Joe Buck will serve as the guest judge for Super Bowl Night on October 13, joining Carrie Ann Inaba, Derek Hough and Bruno Tonioli.
Buck certainly has the football credentials.
He currently calls Monday Night Football and is scheduled to call his seventh Super Bowl when ABC and ESPN broadcast Super Bowl LXI in February 2027.
But his announcement immediately produced another question from DWTS fans:
Why not Erin Andrews?
Andrews has a connection to both football and Dancing With the Stars that few people can match.
She competed on Season 10, finishing third with professional partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy.
Years later, she returned in an entirely different role, co-hosting DWTS alongside Tom Bergeron from 2014 until the pair departed the show in 2020.
Today, Andrews remains heavily involved in the NFL as one of Fox Sports’ most recognizable sideline reporters.
That combination made her seem like an obvious Super Bowl Night possibility to many viewers.
She understands the ballroom because she has competed in it.
She understands the show because she hosted it.
And she understands professional football because covering the NFL remains a major part of her career.
So when Buck was announced instead, fans quickly began questioning the decision.
One viewer asked why producers hadn’t contacted Andrews.
Others argued that if DWTS wanted a football broadcaster, choosing somebody who had actually competed on the show would have created a much stronger connection to the theme.
Several fans also questioned the broader trend of bringing in guest judges without ballroom experience.
Buck has decades of sports-broadcasting experience, but he has never competed on Dancing With the Stars and isn’t known for a professional dance background.
And Andrews wasn’t the only alternative viewers suggested.
Fans pointed out that DWTS has an extensive history with NFL players — including several who actually won the Mirrorball Trophy.
Names including Emmitt Smith, Donald Driver, Hines Ward and Rashad Jennings were raised as people who would understand both football and the difficulty of competing inside the ballroom.
Interestingly, ABC is bringing some of those alumni back.
The network confirmed that Emmitt Smith, Donald Driver, DeMarcus Ware and Danny Amendola will all return for Super Bowl Night appearances.
They are even expected to perform during the episode.
But none of them received the guest-judge chair.
That only intensified the question for some fans.
Why bring back people who have actually experienced the competition while giving the scoring paddle to someone with no personal DWTS history?
One possible explanation involves the network connection.
Buck works for ESPN, while Dancing With the Stars airs on ABC and Disney+.
ABC and ESPN are both part of Disney, and the networks will also carry Super Bowl LXI.
That makes Buck’s appearance an obvious opportunity to promote the upcoming broadcast across Disney platforms.
Andrews, by comparison, works for Fox Sports.
Some fans have therefore theorized that Buck was selected largely because of corporate cross-promotion rather than because producers believed he had more DWTS expertise.
That explanation is plausible, but it remains speculation unless ABC or the producers confirm why Buck was chosen.
The same caution applies to claims that Andrews was actually “snubbed.”
There is currently no public confirmation that DWTS approached Andrews, that she was available, or that producers deliberately passed over her.
What is confirmed is simply that she isn’t part of the announced lineup while Buck will serve as guest judge.
The feeling that she was “done dirty” comes from fans who believe her history made her the more obvious choice.
And for longtime viewers, there is another emotional layer.
Andrews’ departure from DWTS in 2020 happened alongside Bergeron’s exit when the program changed hosts.
So Super Bowl Night could have provided a rare full-circle opportunity for her to return to the ballroom in a completely new role.
Instead, she remains absent while several NFL alumni return and Buck takes the fourth seat at the judges’ table.
That doesn’t mean Buck lacks a reason to be there.
Super Bowl Night is explicitly celebrating football, and few broadcasters have spent more time calling major NFL games.
But for fans who wanted the episode to celebrate DWTS history as much as football history, Erin Andrews represented both worlds at once.
And that is why one seemingly simple guest-judge announcement has become another surprisingly heated Season 35 debate.
Joe Buck brings the Super Bowl connection.
But some fans believe Dancing With the Stars already had someone with the football connection and the ballroom history — and they can’t understand why Erin Andrews isn’t the one holding the paddle.
