A Fox graphic for Tom Brady's "LFG Player of the Game." A Fox graphic for Tom Brady’s “LFG Player of the Game.” (Fox Sports NFL on X.)

An often-interesting situation in sports broadcasting is how networks try to avoid airing profane language that’s such a frequent part of the sports they’re showing. They sometimes do that with winks and nods, but it’s amusing when that’s not just around players’ language, but a regular segment from one of their analysts.

That’s the case with Fox analyst Tom Brady’s regular postgame feature of “LFG Player of the Game,” which saw recipient Jayden Daniels ask him to spell that acronym out Sunday in an interview after Daniels’ Commanders’ win over the Detroit Lions:

Daniels absolutely knows the expletive-laden answer here, and so does just about everyone who was watching. “Let’s ******* go,” or “LFG,” has become a rallying cry across sports, even becoming so associated with the U.S. women’s national soccer team that it was the title of a documentary on their fight for equal pay. Beyond that, it’s been used by an incredibly wide cast of sports characters, from the New York Mets’ Pete Alonso (to the chagrin of Keith Hernandez) to the San Diego Padres’ Jorge Alfaro to Nigerian women’s soccer player Asisat Oshoala.

And Brady himself has used this as a mantra for years, and even referenced it in media ventures. That was particularly true with his long-running SiriusXM podcast with Jim Gray and Larry Fitzgerald (which he gave up this year to focus on his Fox work; Gray has continued it with other contributors, including Bill Belichick, Maxx Crosby, and Peter King), titled Let’s Go (albeit with a notably-absent F). And he’s used it each week for this “LFG Player of the Game” on Fox, and they seem fine with that. And the Las Vegas Raiders’ October announcement of Brady officially taking an ownership stake in their franchise (which continuesΒ to spark conflictofinterest debate) carried a #LFG hashtag:

But it is amusing to see Daniels reference Brady’s wink-and-nod cursing here, and to see Brady have to think on his feet for how to respond (which he wound up doing quite well, and handling with a laugh). And he probably was smart not to utter the actual expletive here; while f-bombs regularly make it to air on sports broadcasts, including even on more-regulated broadcast television networks like Fox, and don’t usually spark a whole ton of actual FCC fines (unlike, say, misuse of emergency alert tones), they spark a lot more criticism if they come from broadcast personnel rather than coaches or athletes.

Thus, Brady couldn’t easily spell this out. Credit to him for staying on his feet in the pocket and coming up with a workable response quickly here. But this does also show the absurdity of Fox running a regular feature (and one sponsored by Verizon!) that they can’t actually spell out. And it shows the remarkable state of play around cursing in sports, where it’s a common part of the game, but one networks can only reference obliquely and/or apologize for if they do end up airing it.

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.