After a bumpy first season in the booth that left NFL fans mocking the 10-year, $375 million contract he signed with Fox, Tom Brady has made huge strides in year two as a color commentator. His commentary has been much smoother, detailed, and it has simply felt more natural alongside play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt.
And during the NFC Wild Card matchup between the San Francisco 49ers and Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, Brady showed off the perspective he brings to the table as a seven-time Super Bowl champion and five-time Super Bowl MVP at quarterback.
The wind was a huge factor in Philadelphia for the game, impacting throws and kicks throughout the day at Lincoln Financial Field. So, Brady took the opportunity to explain the mechanics of throwing a football in heavy wind, and he even held a football during a demonstration to educate viewers.
Tom Brady explains the science of throwing the football in heavy wind, which has been a major factor during 49ers-Eaglespic.twitter.com/UmrpVfMezl
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 11, 2026
“What you see, and I talk about the point of the ball a lot, you see it from; I’ll show it to you from this angle,” Brady said, using the football to help with his analysis during the lesson alongside Burkhardt. “This is kind of like a neutral plane. This is when the plane is slightly down. When you’re throwing it into the wind, it has to be neutral. If the point of the ball is up, any wind friction is going to push that ball up over the top.”
“So, as a quarterback, you don’t really like that ‘U’ throw underneath, because naturally that’s going to point the tip of the ball up,” Brady continued. “You like more of a ‘C’ or an inverse, a reverse ‘C’. That’s how you kind of control the point of the ball. And then you can kind of just snap it off as you throw it. But in these windy conditions, you can’t be underneath the ball. There’s too much wind surface of the ball to knock it off its path.”
This is the exact kind of educational analysis viewers hoped to get from Brady after he put together a historic NFL career at quarterback and was known for his IQ and competitiveness at the position. He’s in such a unique position to be able to speak from these experiences that other analysts cannot in the booth, and viewers want to learn from someone who’s had the success he has.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.