Tom Brady reflects on ‘growing pains’ as broadcaster: ‘Sometimes you regress a little bit’

Tom Brady knows his first season as a broadcaster was far from flawless.

That’s a far cry from calling Year 1 “great,” but it’s also telling that he never set any strict benchmarks for success. Earlier this offseason, Brady mostly avoided criticizing players, focusing instead on building a foundation for himself as a broadcaster.

He’s trying to build off a season that can be described as a “work in progress,” all while acknowledging the usual growing pains of making the transition to the media as a former player, especially when you were pretty vanilla during your playing days.

Add in Brady’s minority ownership of the Las Vegas Raiders, preventing him from attending practice and production meetings, and he was practically replacing Greg Olsen with one arm tied behind his back. So, it didn’t come as a surprise that his debut season was anything but smooth. He was never going to be Olsen or Troy Aikman overnight, and he never pretended to be perfect.

But when you’re widely considered the greatest player in NFL history, pulling in $37.5 million a year to share your opinion over the next decade, the knives come out. We at Awful Announcing certainly didn’t pull any punches, as AA’s Ben Axelrod suggested that not only was Brady not a fit for broadcasting, but his Super Bowl LIX performance only confirmed the notion that he was never ready for the big stage.

Brady hasn’t publicly responded to really any of the criticism he’s faced from sports media critics, but he’s been candid about his own learning curve.

“There was a lot of growing pains through the year for me, just in terms of prep and, obviously, going on-air, and there’s things you messed up and there’s things that you make mistakes,” Brady said during a recent appearance on The Joel Klatt Show. “And probably a lot like being an NFL quarterback. You think, ‘I’m prepared and I got and I practiced.’ You go into a real game in your rookie year, and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, that’s a lot faster. What am I doing?’ It gets a little better in Week 2 and a little better in Week 3. And sometimes you regress a little bit, and sometimes you do things you really like that impress you. And sometimes you’re like you forgot completely going into Week 9, ‘How did I do that?’ or ‘What was I talking about?'”

By the time he reached the Super Bowl broadcast, Brady said he was “way more comfortable” and looked back on the season as “really rewarding.” He acknowledged it wasn’t perfect, nor did he expect it to be, but he’s optimistic heading into Year 2 with valuable experience under his belt.

That optimism isn’t unwarranted, even if a lot of the criticism was. Brady struggled in many areas, but often found himself at odds with figuring out what the audience wanted to hear from him, while also conveying the technical aspects of a sport in which he proved to be the best.

“The tricky part for broadcasting is everybody likes something a little bit different,” Brady said. “I think when you’re broadcasting a game, the listener likes something different from everybody. They like your voice. They like your inflection. They like your technical parts — or they don’t. They like or they don’t like. Some like a little teaching. Some like entertainment. Some like personal stories. Some you’re talking too much about yourself. Depending on who you ask, you get a lot of feedback. And I think that’s the confusing part.”

Brady was also confused by himself. He’s spent the offseason watching film and often came away thinking that anyone
could’ve done what he did. He probably didn’t think that when he was under center, or maybe he did. Too often, he was playing it safe. Too often, he was checking it down. He had to figure out how to be Tom Brady. And he still is.

“Where can you really find your niche?” he said.

That’s the $375 million question.