New England Patriots
Brady still does have lingering flaws, but he has figured out an essential part of the job: recognizing the complexities on the field and breaking them down for an audience eager to learn.
A few days after the Patriots perhaps permanently devastated the Falcons with their rally from 28-3 down in Super Bowl LI, Tom Brady matter-of-factly told The MMQB’s Peter King in a wide-ranging interview that nothing he saw on the field could fool him.
“I have the answers to the test now,” said Brady, who, 17 seasons into his career, had won five of his eventual seven Super Bowls.
It sounded arrogant, but it was a matter-of-fact truth. And in his second season into his 10-year, $375 million deal to be the color analyst alongside Kevin Burkhardt on Fox’s No. 1 NFL team, Brady is figuring out how to convey that boundless knowledge to viewers in an enjoyable and informative way.
This isn’t a suggestion that Brady’s second season in the Fox booth is going as well as, say, his second season in the NFL — 2001, when the Patriots won their first Super Bowl in true storybook fashion.
But it must be acknowledged that Brady has greatly improved this season — and he hasn’t been better than he was during the Thanksgiving broadcast of the Packers’ 31-24 victory over the Lions.
I especially enjoyed his breakdown of Lions receiver Isaac TeSlaa’s 17-yard touchdown reception midway through the third quarter, which cut the Packers’ lead to 24-21.
Brady offered a quick assessment of the touchdown immediately after Burkhardt’s play-by-play, but he really shined with a deeper, jargon-free elaboration of how the play unfolded after a brief commercial break.
First, Brady noted by drawing how TeSlaa and fellow receiver Jameson Williams were supposed to cross near the Packers’ 5-yard line. But Williams did not follow the plan, Brady explained, revealing something few if anyone watching at home would have known.
“Jameson Williams sees that it’s not man coverage, so in an effort to get himself open, he peels back to the left side, and both safety and corner take him and actually free up TeSlaa in the middle of the end zone,” Brady said, circling the defensive backs. “That is not how you draw that up.”
The broadcast then cut to a clip of Packers star pass rusher Micah Parsons being double-teamed by a pair of Lions linemen, one with a potentially flag-worthy grip on Parsons’s jersey.
“He’s looking at the ref going, ‘C’mon, he’s holding me,’ ” narrated Brady with some amusement as a replay shows Parsons pleading his case to an official. “Guess what, Micah, they hold you on every play. That is the only way to block you.”
Brady was still an active player in May 2022 when Fox Sports announced that he would join the network as its lead analyst upon retirement. Brady retired in February 2023, but instead took a year hiatus before joining the network for the 2024 season.
During that time, Brady said he deeply studied other analysts of the past and present, among them John Madden and Tony Romo, in a quest to understand what made a great analyst.
Rather than taking the best from them — or just be himself — he instead seemed to try to be everything and everyone at once in his first season. The result was an uncertain broadcaster who often sounded like he was relaying the ChatGPT sludge answer to the prompt, “How do I sound like the best NFL color analyst?”
Brady still does have lingering flaws. Some that might be unfixable (his voice remains reedy) and some that should be easy adjustments — his recurring references to Burkhardt as “KB” feel less convivial the more he says them.
But he has figured out an essential part of the job: recognizing the complexities of what is happening on the field, and breaking those complexities down simply and quickly for an audience that wants to learn from him.
Brady has long had the answers to the test. Now he knows how to share them with the rest of us.
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Allow me to second colleague Tara Sullivan’s recent take that the three-part HBO documentary series on Alex Rodriguez, “Alex vs. A-Rod,” was a riveting watch. Rodriguez’s candor about his often self-defeating narcissism and some childhood emotional scars render him a fully drawn character for perhaps the first time.
Having dealt with Rodriguez a few times one-on-one since his media career began, I’ve always found him agreeable and even charming, but weirdly unable to stray from obviously pre-considered answers. Here’s hoping the doc makes it easier for him to lean into authenticity.
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