In Tom Brady’s first two NFL starts, he threw zero touchdowns, completed 53 percent of his passes for an average of 127 yards a game, took five sacks and split one win and one loss. He played like a first-time NFL starter who was just trying to move the sticks, stay out of the way of his running game, and do what he was told as he found his footing.
That frame of reference — how he started his last job as a quarterback — is something to keep in mind as he ventures into his next one. Because it began Sunday in a very similar manner, with a broadcasting performance that showcased a mixture of potential, inexperience, awkwardness … and by the end of the venture, some clear improvement that suggests Tom Brady is going to do just fine in this new frontier.
Of course, it didn’t come without a tidal wave of social media opinions of fans — many underscoring a predictable reality: If you hated Brady as a player, you’re probably going to find reasons to hate him as a broadcaster. And if you liked him as a player, you’re likely going to give him the initial benefit of the doubt as he finds a way to live up to Fox’s 10-year $375 million commitment.
It surely didn’t take long to see some of what Fox was investing in, starting with Brady’s arrival to his game — a less-than-stellar Dallas Cowboys and Cleveland Browns opener (we’ll get to that). I can’t recall the last time I saw a broadcaster’s entrance into the stadium treated like he was still a star quarterback. But Brady’s was given the kind of star treatment that he enjoyed as a player, with the NFL’s social media accounts showing a clip of him arriving in a sharply tailored suit and declaring “First day on the new job” alongside a goat emoji.
Fox rolled out the red carpet as well, with a commercial serenading Brady’s broadcasting arrival that featured him talking to younger versions of himself while declaring his commitment to proving doubters wrong in this job, too. By the time the broadcast kicked into gear and the production cut to a booth shot of Brady and play-by-play man Kevin Burkhardt, you could feel the gravitas of the moment that Fox had been chasing. But you could also feel the awkwardness of Brady fitting into a new role.
The thing about Brady that really stuck out when you watched him as a broadcaster is that he’s already been a brand. We know him on multiple other landscapes. We lived decades of his football career that included tens of thousands of publicized moments that created a deep well of what we thought of him. We also absorbed a vast amount of coverage of his fame and personal life, his hawking of the TB12 lifestyle, and a growing empire on social media and in Hollywood. He’s been a star. And now he’s doing some very mortal work as a broadcast analyst.
The reason why that’s important is it invites conflict with how he presents as an analyst. Expectations are high from the start. So when Brady was suddenly on camera Sunday with a forced, toothy smile — which is as much a staple of broadcasting attire as a suit and tie — it immediately feels a little fabricated. Which it is. Many NFL broadcasts are manicured and produced to death in a relentless (and ironic) search for authentic moments. That’s what makes the best broadcasting teams so great. They navigate the forced nature of overproduction and still find ways to interact as real people rather than manufactured talent.
That’s what Brady is going to have to develop. Just like every other great broadcaster that came before him. The only problem, he’s walking into this job with a massive paycheck and massive expectations — and the lingering reality that Fox bumped a very high level talent in Greg Olsen out of the center stage booth to make room for him.
Brady’s start basically would have needed to be perfect or revelatory to live up to the hype that he brings to the table. And it was neither. He didn’t deliver the kind of sharp analysis that Olsen developed over several years of work. He didn’t come out of the box constantly tipping plays like Tony Romo. And he didn’t make edgy criticisms like Troy Aikman or Cris Collinsworth. Instead, Brady spent the broadcast staying in his lane and letting Burkhardt play point guard as he got more comfortable.
The result was a little bit of an awkward start, as Brady searched for a comfortable cadence and when to inject himself with a point. Often, Burkhardt would present a discussion point to Brady to draw analysis out of him. There were some odd pauses and also some obvious analysis (“It’s hard to gain 10 yards in the NFL. It’s really hard to gain 15 yards. It’s very, very difficult to gain 20 yards.”). At one point, a booth shot caught Brady reaching for a fist bump from rules analyst Mike Pereira, who wasn’t paying attention and left Brady awkwardly hanging for a few seconds.
But even in a lopsided 33-17 Cowboys win, there were some unscripted light moments, such as when Burkhardt asked Pereira if he’d made Brady carry his bags as the broadcast rookie. Pereira — who was an NFL official from 1996 to 2010 — quipped back a line referencing the notorious complaint that Brady got protected by officials during his career: “I’ll tell ya, we protected him on the field, so now we protect him with the bags.” To which Brady responded, “I enjoyed that protection over the years.”
There were times that it seemed obvious Brady wasn’t in the mid-week production meetings, which he’s not allowed to attend as part-owner of the Las Vegas Raiders. He seemed to lack some of the typical anecdotes and personal interactions that come out of those meetings. Brady was also mostly mild in his criticism of specific players or obvious in-game mistakes.
Clearly, there is room to grow from here. But even his first game was a sign that it can happen, as he seemed to get more comfortable injecting analysis as the game went on. His cadence improved. The odd pauses and half sentences became less frequent. And he also gave Burkhardt plenty of air in the booth to do his job, never hogging conversations and rarely talking over top of Burkhardt’s calls. His analysis also had some bright spots, too, such as when he called out an open tight end while a play was live, essentially pointing out that Browns QB Deshaun Watson was missing an open man. Early in the game, he also caught Cowboys QB Dak Prescott changing the play at the line of scrimmage on his touchdown pass to Brandin Cooks, allowing for a compelling closeup of Prescott on a replay.
Taken for what it was — the first game in an intended decade-long campaign with Fox — it was a solid debut. Like Brady’s other forays into social media and the Hollywood spotlight, he will likely get better and more authentic as he becomes more comfortable. Whether that translates into him eventually developing the instinct to wield a sharp edge when necessary remains to be seen. But if his football career is any indication, it’s coming. At a faster rate and headed for higher peaks than any of us might anticipate.