When Tom Brady made his debut for Fox Sports this season, any thought that he would step in as a finished product quickly evaporated.
In fact, the biggest surprise was just how nervous and unsure Brady sounded in his debut as Fox’s $375 million analyst. Since that Week 1 appearance, Brady has definitely improved. He’s been very enthusiastic and offered some unique insights that you would hope to get from someone who is the unquestioned GOAT of his sport.
But anyone looking to Brady to redefine what a sports analyst is capable of has been disappointed. He’s maybe the best example in recent memory that star power, success on the field, and a giant contract doesn’t automatically equate to being able to step into a broadcast booth on day one and be great in a completely different medium.
Understandably, Fox is trying to be hands on in molding and shaping Brady given the long-term investment the network has in him as a broadcaster (Raiders ownership aside). And one area they have reportedly spotted is trying to get Brady to focus more on X’s and O’s instead of intangibles.
Via John Ourand in his Puck newsletter:
When most players leave the NFL for the broadcast booth, they immediately lean on X’s and O’s as their crutch. Seemingly every play, they dissect gaps and blocking schemes. In his first 10 games as Fox Sports’ top analyst, Tom Brady has instead focused on things you don’t find in a playbook: pointing out the leadership of stars, focusing on the development of young players, and looking for accountability among veterans.
Fox producers have been pushing Brady to incorporate more of what he’s seeing on the field—duh—into his commentary. And these sorts of observations—why a play worked or fell apart—are starting to pop up more frequently on the broadcast.
It’s not quite the much publicized intervention that CBS had with Tony Romo when critics were out in full force regarding his performances in the booth going downhill. While Romo’s hot seat has cooled off this year (maybe largely thanks to the public attention on Brady), he’s still not the tour de force that he was in his early years in the broadcast booth.
As for Brady, his intangible qualities are arguably one of the main reasons he became the best ever after being a sixth round pick out of Michigan. Getting inside Brady’s mind might be more valuable than what he’s seeing from an X’s and O’s perspective, but perhaps it can be balanced and recalibrated a little better.
However you want to look at it, this news is a sign that Brady is still very much a work in progress. A very, very expensive work in progress.
[Puck]
