NFL fans couldn’t help but laugh during Week 1 of the NFL season as Tom Brady filled his Fox broadcast debut with repeated mentions of “going backwards” and negative plays by both Dallas and Cleveland. But in his first interview on The Pat McAfee Show of the regular season, Brady’s longtime head coach, Bill Belichick, came to his former quarterback’s defense while explaining why so many young quarterbacks struggled to open the year.
In the process, Belichick explained why the Patriots valued field position and decision-making so much while also supporting Brady’s emphasis on them in the booth.
“He must have said, I don’t know how many times in the Dallas-Cleveland game, Dallas keeps going backward, they keep losing too many yards. Well, that’s the truth,” Belichick said. “Just get the thing moving in the right direction, and Tom and I have talked a million times about, if you complete this pass, what’s the upside?
“The thing that Tom Brady didn’t do was make bad decisions for the team..
He always protected the team and even if it wasn’t a great play at least it wasn’t a bad play”
Bill Belichick #PMSLive https://t.co/OhHbk61Vjx pic.twitter.com/Z8Hk2mZEbQ
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) September 9, 2024
Later, cohost A.J. Hawk asked Belichick what it felt like to hear Brady echo his coaching philosophy on national television. But rather than take credit for mentoring Brady, Belichick emphasized just how much he learned from his QB.
“I learned more from Tom than he learned from me, I’m sure,” Belichick said. “When we would sit in those meetings … he taught me all the little things, and some are big things, of just how he saw the game as a quarterback.”
Belichick praised Brady for seeing nonverbal cues from the defense, overhearing play calls, and intuiting where to attack an opponent. As a defensive mind, Belichick knows how to scheme and stop great offenses, but through Brady, it sounds as if Belichick got a master class in seeing the game through the eyes of a great offense and its orchestrator.
From his answers, it’s easy to tell Belichick closely watched Brady’s Fox debut. And he clearly believes Brady has plenty more to give viewers despite mixed reactions to his first performance as a game analyst on TV.
“There’s things that you see on the field that a coach just can’t pick up on film,” Belichick said. “I learned a tremendous amount from Tom. We had a great relationship, and hopefully, he learned some things from me, too.”
“I learned a lot more from Tom Brady than he learned from me..
When we would sit in those meetings he would let me know everything that he saw as a Quarterback..
I learned a tremendous amount from Tom and Randy Moss” ~ Bill Belichick #PMSLive https://t.co/F8KROqTtHx pic.twitter.com/abNmhBwLEs
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) September 9, 2024
It only took a week before the Patriot Way came through in NFL media. Field position and penalty-free football may not be the most glamorous elements of America’s favorite sport, but they are major tenets of the NFL’s most dominant-ever dynasty.
It remains to be seen whether Belichick and Brady are great broadcasters or actually stick with their media careers, but one thing is clear: We should expect more New England propaganda on Fox and ESPN this year.
[The Pat McAfee Show via ESPN on YouTube]
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.