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Kevin Burkhardt Reveals How Greg Olsen Broke the Ice With Tom Brady After Broadcasting Deal

Also in Traina Thoughts: Cowboys draw ratings even in unwatchable games; Micah Parsons not a fan of soda prices; Booger vs. Steve Young; and more.

Jimmy Traina

1. On May 10, Fox announced that Tom Brady had signed a 10-year contract with the network and that whenever he retired, he would become its lead NFL analyst.

Nobody knows when the future Hall of Famer will call it quits, but for now, Greg Olsen is keeping Brady’s seat warm on Fox’s No. 1 NFL booth working alongside play-by-play man Kevin Burkhardt.

On last week’s SI Media Podcast, Joe Buck said that he isn’t sure Brady will ever call a game for Fox.

Burkhardt is the guest on this week’s SI Media Podcast. He talked about his first season on Fox’s “A” team, how he found out Joe Buck was leaving Fox to join ESPN, thus creating the opening for Burkhardt to move up, and the unique situation of working with Olsen while waiting for Brady to retire.

I asked Burkhardt what that setup has been like for him and whether he communicates with Brady.

“So, multiple layers to this,” Burkhardt said. “I don’t even remotely think about it right now. And I can’t.

“So when this all went down, I’ll give you a little backstory, with Greg and the terms of whenever Tom’s done playing or whatever the situation is. So, texted with Tom, that basic, you know, text, back and forth and that was it. I said to myself, I can’t think about that until and if it happens. I can’t. I got too much on my own plate and I also have so much love and respect for Greg. And then Greg and I talked about it openly for a while, and our thing is let’s just enjoy the hell out of this ride and we’ll see how long it goes and where it goes. You don’t know what tomorrow is, I know that sounds cliché, but that’s truthfully what happened.

The only next thing was, we obviously have a lot of Tom games, is when he had [the Bucs] the first time both guys were awesome. We’re in the production meeting, and Greg diffused the whole situation, and Brady was great busting balls and it was fun.”

How did Olsen break the ice?

“I can tell you one thing. Some of the other stuff I’ll leave with us. When he came in, we're just shooting the shit at first like you usually do before you start these meetings, and Greg said, and hopefully he doesn’t mind me saying this, but he said, ‘Tom, I gotta tell you, this TV thing sucks.’ We were dying laughing. It was fun. We had a good back and forth.”

Burkhardt said Brady loved the line and “was great busting chops back.”

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.

2. Speaking of the SI Media Podcast, I need all you reading this to root hard for the Lions on Thursday when they host the Bills.

3. This was a valid take by Booger McFarland, and the one who comes off bad here is Steve Young, who looks like he's just trying to protect a fellow BYU QB. Zach Wilson's play and attitude are indefensible.

4. You really need to see how Duke covered against Pitt in this week's edition of “Bad Beats.” Just beyond brutal.

5. Last Wednesday I wrote about the ratings dominance of the Cowboys, but even this surprised me. Dallas’s noncompetitive, unwatchable 40–3 win over the Vikings drew 27.6 million viewers. CBS did switch most of the country out of the game in the fourth quarter to air Bengals-Steelers.

6. Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons is in the middle of a $17 million contract, but he’s had it with the price of soda in restaurants.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Happy 72nd birthday to Steven Van Zandt.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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