Best & Worst of Tom Brady in the NFL Broadcast Booth: Week 5

Brady was on the call for the Arizona Cardinals' upset of the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday

Tom Brady called this week's 49ers-Cardinals game / Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images

Tom Brady's first season as an NFL broadcaster will be under an incredibly strong microscope. He is Tom Brady, after all. Everything he does is of great interest to the general public. But as the former quarterback knows well, there are no bright lights quite like that of the NFL.

In part due to his status, in part due to the enormity of the contract Fox Sports gave him, and in part because he's replacing a widely-liked analyst in Greg Olsen, every single thing Brady says on FOX broadcasts this season will be broken down and examined to the core. There will be many lengthy columns written to judge the minutiae of Brady's skills as a color commentator. And many people will read them.

But for most, opinions on Brady will come down to a handful of viral clips that circulate on social media platforms over the next 17 weeks and into the playoffs. These clips could be good or bad, but either way they'll inform the larger audience of Brady's current status as an announcer until there are north of 20 million pairs of eyes on him in the postseason.

Here, we'll break down those clips. It will serve as a window into how Brady performed in his most recent appearance and a barometer of his progress as the season goes on.

Best

Brady ended up on the call this week for a shockingly exciting Arizona Cardinals-San Francisco 49ers game that ended in a Cardinals' upset. To secure the win, Kyler Murray led the offense down the field over the last three minutes of the game for a go-ahead field goal. During that drive, Brady had a strong, instant reaction moment as an analyst that goes to show how far he's come along.

With just over two minutes to go and the ball at midfield, Murray was flushed from the pocket and scrambled for a first down. Running to the sideline, the shifty Cardinals quarterback chose to run out of bounds with 2:02 left instead of letting the clock run to the two-minute warning.

Moments after Kevin Burkhardt finished his call, Brady chimed in with a astute piece of analysis: he would have liked to see Murray slide, in order to let the clock hit two minutes. You can hear it yourself starting at the 2:10 mark here.

It was an excellent moment for Brady on several levels. It showed off his strong grasp of game strategy, for one, and mirrored the thoughts of many audience members who enjoy that kind of nuts-and-bolts football acumen. It also set the table for Burkhardt to hold a longer discussion explaining to more casual viewers why it would have been advantageous for the Cardinals to let the clock run as opposed to squeezing in another play before the warning.

Most importantly, Brady saw something, had a smart thought, and threw it out there immediately. That sort of gut reaction can be a difficult adjustment for new announcers and the first four weeks showed Brady was no different. In this moment he made a split-second decision to speak up, and it was the right one as far as adding value for the viewers. A good mark of the progress he's making.

Bad

As explained last week, there is a certain endearing quality to hearing a color commentator incoherently shout during an exciting play. But Brady went overboard on Sunday. When viewers can put together this long of a clip of an announcer's wordless shrieks, things have gone too far.

Compilation of the 🐐Tom Brady's "ooh" commentary Week 5 #AZvsSF #BirdGang pic.twitter.com/OgJJmjPbqs

— 🌴sSǝNʞu∀ɹℲ🌵 (@frankZONEa) October 7, 2024

It isn't the worst problem in the world. Fans regularly call for announcers to have more fun and act like they're at home watching the game on their couch. But Brady is toeing very close to the line of it getting to be too much. Fans want enthusiasm but they don't want so much it gets to be distracting from what's happening on the field. He probably doesn't want that kind of hollering as his signature analyst call, either.

Brady is still figuring things out back there, but there was more good than bad this week. Most importantly, he didn't take away from an exciting game between two entertaining teams.

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