NFL fans deemed Drew Brees a broadcasting bust after his one disappointing year with NBC, but Joe Buck hopes the former quarterback gets another chance in the booth.
Buck joined the latest episode of Sports Media with Richard Deitsch, and during the wide-ranging podcast interview, they discussed Tom Brady’s scheduled debut in the lead analyst chair for Fox. Deitsch noted the unfair reality of Brady being expected to perform right away with the audience unlikely to offer him much of a grace period, prompting Buck to cite Brees’s short tenure with NBC.
“It’s not fair,” Buck agreed regarding the pressure being placed on Brady. “I think Jason Witten got a bad shake. I think Drew Brees got a raw deal. And if there’s anybody who was ever created in a computer to be a top analyst at a network, I think it’s Drew Brees and I would love to see him get another chance at that. He got one game, and he was working with a new crew and a new play-by-play guy and everybody expects brilliance. You make one comment, and it gets its own life on social media. It’s just ridiculous.”
Like Brady with Fox, Brees signed a multiyear contract with NBC before completing his playing career. There were high expectations for Brees at NBC, with the belief that he could eventually succeed Cris Collinsworth in the network’s Sunday Night Football booth. Instead, Brees’s tenure lasted just one season after NBC appeared to sour on the former Super Bowl-winning quarterback when he failed to impress during his lone playoff assignment.
NBC ultimately parted ways with Brees and recommitted to Collinsworth as its lead analyst. But Buck would have liked Brees to get more time.
“It takes a while to kinda put your hands up and fend off the punches and just understand what is needed for you to do you job,” Buck said. “There’s not a lot of grace in the world anymore for, ‘Hey, let’s let somebody just kinda figure it out.’ It’s like, you better be awesome Dallas at Cleveland Week 1 and everybody’s going to form their opinion. That’s ridiculous.”
While the narrative has largely been that NBC wasn’t happy with Brees, the former quarterback has claimed he exited the role wanting to spend more time with his family. Regardless of who decided to part ways with who first, Brees’s season in the booth drew mostly negative reviews. It wasn’t a failure to the level of Jason Witten on Monday Night Football, but Brees failed to live up to expectations. Expectations that may be unfair for a first-year broadcaster. But expectations that undoubtedly will be placed on Brady this season.
[Sports Media with Richard Deitsch]
