The Joe Buck-Troy Aikman partnership is old enough to vote.

The Fox duo has now been together an astounding 18 years in the NFL booth and are two weeks away from calling their sixth Super Bowl together.

There is so much unsaid awareness, a familiarity where I know when hes going to talk or how long hes going to talk just by the way he moves in the booth, said the 50-year-old Buck as he prepared to the call the 49ers-Packers NFC Championship game on Sunday.

If he has something he has to say, I can tell out of the corner of my eye and subtly watch him lean in. I dont even know if hes aware that I am aware of that. If I have a point thats really important for him to hear, because I am really saying it for him to react, Ill just grab him by the left arm and make sure hes listening to me.

Buck and Aikman are the longest tenured of the top NFL booths and, alongside NBCs Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth, perhaps the most secure. The NFLs broadcasting ranks are readying for a potential shake-up this offseason with CBS Tony Romo a free agent and The Posts Andrew Marchand reporting ESPN is poised to make a big-money run at the former Cowboys quarterback who took the industry by storm three years ago.

Aikman, 53, won three Super Bowls in Dallas in the 90s and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2006. The emotional moment last Sunday when he watched from the booth as his former coach Jimmy Johnson found out in the Fox studios that he would be joining Aikman in Canton, Ohio, is a reminder of what the two accomplished together. Even as this generation of fans may know Aikman more for his broadcasting acumen than passing accuracy.

Aikman did muse recently about the possibility of another frontier in his life and his interest in one day being an NFL GM.

Thered be an adjustment period. I think that so much of what we do on the air live and in the moment really requires a familiarity that comes over time, Buck said when asked about the idea of calling an NFL game without Aikman.

When you see different broadcast groups start up theres no benefit of the doubt. First of all, its new voices. Second of all, between the two and three people its hard to get that choreography right. With the pressure involved, especially now, the high-wire act is higher than its ever been. You are just eliminating things off the list that you have to worry about. Its not just Troy and me, its Richie Zyontz [producer] and Rich Russo [director]. I think all of that works to our benefit because all four of us know where the other is going maybe before they know themselves.

Buck will take the first week after the Sunday evening game in San Francisco to recharge, not easy with twin toddler sons at home. Buck said he believes he is better prepared this year for the Super Bowl because of the addition of the Thursday Night Football schedule, which exposed him to the AFC with more regularity. But he is also cognizant of the risks of overloading yourself with too much knowledge for the most-viewed telecast of the year.

If you start getting into the punter bringing his high school coach to the game with his lucky rabbits foot, and putting that with the actual stuff you have in front of you when the game kicks off, you basically lose all the main storylines, which is all people really care about with the Super Bowl, Buck said.

Theres a risk to overtalk because you get nervous or the stage is as big as it is, you really have to be conscious of not overdoing it because you are going to get yourself into traps with too much information and then lose sight of the actual game.

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Joe Buck dishes on chemistry in booth with Troy Aikman - New York Post