The bar for NFL team owners speaking in public hovers right around floor level. Long as you don’t say anything jaw-droppingly stupid, ignorant or offensive, everybody’s still going to call you “Mr.” and jockey for your affection.
So by the standards of his new colleagues, newly minted Las Vegas Raiders owner Tom Brady did just fine in his first announcing gig since getting the approval to buy into the league’s highest echelon. By the standards of the announcing profession and the expectation of Fox viewers, however, well … Brady has a lot of work to do to convincingly juggle these two roles.
Brady officially became a minority owner of the Raiders earlier this week, a role that comes with significant implications for his Sunday job announcing marquee games for Fox. Among the restrictions on Brady as an owner: He can’t criticize the referees, he can’t criticize other organizations, and he can’t sit in on pregame production meetings with other organizations.
All of these restrictions make a lot of sense for, say, Jerry Jones or Robert Kraft. But for a guy getting paid $375 million over the next 10 years to broadcast some of the most important games of the season — including the Super Bowl — these restrictions sure seem like they’ll prevent Brady from being as honest as he ought to be, and as fans should expect he’ll be.
This kind of ownership/broadcast crossover isn’t unprecedented in sports; over in NASCAR, for instance, team owners have often served as broadcasters for races, with little to no acknowledgement of their relationship on the air. But NASCAR is a chummier sport than the NFL … and, like every other sport, has a much smaller broadcast reach than the NFL.
A broadcaster doesn’t have to burn everything to the ground; that kind of Skip Bayless/Stephen A. Smith flamethrowing is less analysis and more performance, and fans can see through it. But a broadcaster ought to have the freedom to speak both honestly and authoritatively on tricky topics — an underperforming player, a dubious coaching decision, a missed or misapplied penalty.
The alternative is exactly what we got from Brady on Sunday afternoon during Fox’s Chiefs-49ers broadcast: a peppy, cheerful broadcast so full of praise and rah-rah that the NFL’s own scriptwriters couldn’t have crafted it better.
Granted, if you’re looking for two teams to criticize, you wouldn’t exactly start with two-time defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City and perpetual playoff contender San Francisco. These two teams are both far removed from their Super Bowl-level strength in February, but they’re still two of the better-run organizations in football.
And oh, did Brady ladle on the praise. He lauded the “sneaky creativeness” of Patrick Mahomes. He showered love on Nick Bosa’s “unbelievable performance in the Super Bowl.” He gushed over the “really good creative scheme by Coach (Andy) Reid, one of the most unique play-callers in the league … just a tremendous coach.” There’s giving players their flowers, and then there’s loading up an entire Amsterdam field’s worth of tulips.
Late in the first quarter, Kansas City’s Nick Bolton was flagged for a highly suspect pass interference call; Brock Purdy’s pass appeared to sail well over the head of George Kittle. But apart from a vanilla “tight call” line, Brady didn’t critique the penalty, or even note that as a quarterback, he loved those that went his way even when he knew they were wrong. Instead, he simply kicked it over to Mike Pereira, Fox’s in-house referee analyst, with a quick “I don’t know, Mike, what do you think?”
Brady did have a few moments, like when he called Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo “the bane of my existence,” referencing their past history on opposite sidelines. But lines like that came off as tongue-in-cheek, offseason-banquet-level banter, not honest critiques.
Shoot, we could find out really quickly just how honest Brady can be. His wretched old squad, the New England Patriots, plays the New York Jets next weekend. Analyzing that mess would push the bounds of Brady’s restrictions. Unfortunately, it’s being broadcast on CBS, but that would be something to hear, wouldn’t it?
The frustrating past of this new dynamic is that Brady is legitimately getting better every week as an analyst. His voice doesn’t have the authoritative bass of John Madden, the distinctive regional accent of Cris Collinsworth or the raspy enthusiasm of Tony Romo. But he’s making up for it by bringing more audible enthusiasm every week, as well as a humanity we weren’t quite sure existed when he was a quarterback. When Brandon Aiyuk went down with a gruesome leg injury late in the first half, Brady audibly gasped in sympathy. It’s a small thing, but it helps connect broadcaster with viewer.
Brady has to be thrilled with this new arrangement, keeping him in the public eye while giving him entry into a higher level of the NFL hierarchy. And the league itself must be pleased; its most famous alum is now a de facto public relations machine.
But Fox can’t be pleased that its star broadcaster is operating without a full toolbox at his disposal. And fans will miss out on what could have been truly honest commentary from one of the most connected players in NFL history. As he did while he was a player, Brady will let us see only what he wants us to see.