SI

Underwhelming Tom Brady Has Plenty of Room for Improvement

Reviewing Brady’s debut as Fox’s lead NFL analyst.

Jimmy Traina

Brady finally made his broadcasting debut on Sunday.
Brady finally made his broadcasting debut on Sunday. / Fox

1. Nobody should be reviewed after one day on the job. It’s just not fair.

But Tom Brady isn’t just anybody. He’s the greatest quarterback of all time, a seven-time Super Bowl winner and a guy who has made the crossover from sports into pop culture. He also has a $375 million contract, replaced one of the top two or three analysts in the NFL and had his debut pumped up relentlessly by Fox.

So guess what? Unfortunately, Brady is gonna get reviewed for his call on the first game of his broadcasting career.

I didn’t think Brady was bad. I didn’t think Brady was great. The word that kept coming into my head while watching Cowboys-Browns was “underwhelming.”

Brady was clearly nervous at the start of the game and Kevin Burkhardt was doing a lot of work. It’s fascinating to me that TOM BRADY, a guy who has won Super Bowls in the final seconds of games, could be nervous just broadcasting a game, but he was. Brady did improve and get more comfortable as the game went on. His second half was much better than his first half. All of that was to be expected.

What I didn’t expect was Brady to be as timid as he was. I thought there would be more detailed analysis and X’s and O’s. I thought he’d be a little more aggressive. Brady should’ve been hammering Deshaun Watson throughout the game. He did not.

For example, on Cleveland’s first drive of the third quarter, Watson completely missed a wide open Amari Cooper on a short pass, throwing behind his wideout. This was Brady’s reaction: “Just, obviously, behind the sticks again and out of rhythm. You don’t play in the preseason and now you’re out there against a good defense that presents some challenges because you’re not really running the ball great.”

You shouldn’t need preseason to complete a five-yard pass to a wide-open guy. I would’ve liked some details here about what Watson saw, what Watson might have been doing with his feet, what could’ve caused him to miss a receiver who had nobody near him.

I think that will happen in the coming weeks as he gets more comfortable. Even if he’s Tom Brady, he needs a chance to get his feet wet.

A little later in the third quarter when the Browns were driving and running a second-and-4 play from Dallas’s 20-yard line, Brady circled Micah Parsons, which he seemed to really like to do throughout the game, and said, “You got a five-man protection, so you got an open edge here with Parsons. He’s gonna have to get rid of it quick.” Watson then got rid of it quick and completed a five-yard pass for a first touchdown.

That’s the good stuff right there.

When I interviewed Brady on the SI Media Podcast in June, he told me he was worried he might be too critical during telecasts. I got the impression Sunday that Brady was going out of his way to not be critical. He needs to let it fly. He can’t hold back. That doesn’t do Brady or the viewers any good.

I also thought Brady would be more entertaining and engage in more lighthearted banter with Burkhardt. Again, it’s his first time calling a game, he has a million things to worry about and learn, so it’s hard to expect him to yuck it up from the get-go. But a little humor here and there would go a long way.

Brady wasn’t annoying. He didn’t say anything ridiculous and embarrassing, à la Cris Collinsworth, who said a Matt Stafford completion may be “the throw of the year” in Week 1, while also calling it “redonkulous.”

Some other random thoughts on Brady’s big debut:

  • It didn’t help that he had an unwatchable game to broadcast. The game was over at halftime, the Browns were completely inept on offense and there wasn’t any strategy for Brady to get into.
  • Within five minutes of Brady’s debut, I got tweets saying Fox should bring back Olsen. It absolutely did not help Brady that Olsen was calling the Steelers-Falcons game that led into Cowboys-Browns and was giving his typical A-plus broadcast. The specter of Olsen is not going to help Brady.
  • When Brady did the intro with Burkhardt prior to kickoff, it felt a little weird to me because it feels Brady is actually too famous to be an analyst. Like I said, Brady isn’t just a sports star. He’s the rare athlete that EVERYBODY knows.
  • I know Brady has done a ton of practice games. I’m sure he’s had executives and production people pumping him with advice. He felt too rehearsed to me, especially in the first half. He should forget it all and just talk football as if he’s not on television.
  • I fully expect Brady to have a much better game in Week 2 when he calls, what I assume will be, the Saints-Cowboys game.

2. It seems like EVERYBODY has critiqued Brady over the past 24 hours. One person, however, that I did not expect to weigh in on the Fox analyst was RedZone host Scott Hanson.

But even Hanson got in on the action by calling out Brady for not being excited that Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey was attempting a 71-yard field goal (which ended up not happening).

3. While Brady is getting all the hype, I couldn’t help but think of Bill Belichick. The former coach seemed to be the one person in the media who wasn’t buying into the Caleb Williams preseason hype and called out the first-round pick for being inaccurate.

Sure enough, Williams was awful Sunday, completing 14 of 29 passes for 93 yards against the Titans.

4. I would like to clarify this tweet for some of the people on X (formerly Twitter) who don’t understand nuance.

There were many replies that said, “CBS tried to air the U.S. Open men’s final on a Monday and the ratings were bad” and “What if the match goes more than three hours.”

CBS did not air the men’s final leading into an NFL game. The point of my tweet was that ESPN would do a great job promoting the men’s final leading right into Monday Night Football.

The current setup has the men’s final going up against the NFL. The Jack Sinner–Taylor Fritz match started at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday. Just a totally dumb decision by whoever makes the schedule.

As for the match going more than three hours, that’s a very easy problem to solve. ESPN moves the match to ESPN2 while the NFL game starts on ESPN. If the match is compelling enough that it’s in the fourth or fifth hour, a decent amount of people will stick with it.

But airing on the first Sunday of the NFL season makes absolutely no sense.

In an ideal world, the U.S. Open would wrap up the weekend before the NFL season starts. But if it insists on airing during the first weekend of the NFL season, Monday is a better day than Sunday for the men’s final.

5. Loved this by CBS’s Adam Archuleta, who let out an “oh no” before the interception even happened as Broncos rookie Bo Nix threw an ill-advised pass that was picked off by the Seahawks.

6. I had a horrific day betting Sunday thanks to the disgusting Giants, who I knew were doomed once I saw their hideous throwback uniforms, and the Bengals, who destroyed what would’ve been a very profitable teaser.

So shoutout to WWE Undisputed Heavyweight champion Cody Rhodes, who also had a rough day picking games on Sunday. We’ll bounce back next week.

Cody Rhodes Instagram

7. The latest episode of SI Media With Jimmy Traina features a conversation with ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt.

Van Pelt, who just began his 10th year hosting his solo version of SportsCenter and hosts ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown, talks about the addition of Jason Kelce to the pregame show, how he helped recruit Kelce and what he expects from the future Hall of Famer.

Van Pelt also talks about his decade as a SportsCenter host, signing a new five-year contract to stay with the show and the importance of being on air right after big events.

Other topics covered with Van Pelt include Pat McAfee’s recent confrontation with media members at ESPN’s Media Day in Bristol, Conn., SVP’s frustration with a perceived ESPN-FS1 competition and the hypothetical of Inside the NBA joining ESPN.

In addition, Van Pelt tells the story of the time he accidentally said the f-word on air, talks about his weekly “Bad Beats” segment, opines on what he’d like to accomplish with his podcast and much more.

Following Van Pelt, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York joins me for our weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. In this week’s segment, we discuss Week 1 NFL lines and season over/unders, the DirecTV-ESPN carriage dispute and getting hooked into another Sopranos rewatch.

You can listen to the SI Media With Jimmy Traina below or on Apple and Spotify.

You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Sports Illustrated‘s YouTube channel.

8. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: If you didn’t watch it over the weekend, I cannot recommend the Sopranos documentary that aired on HBO enough. It is a must-watch. It’s currently streaming on Max. Watch it. ASAP.

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 and Instagram.

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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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