After reportedly bothering some NFL people with their first sit-down earlier this season, Tom Brady will interview Patrick Mahomes again for Fox ahead of Super Bowl LIX.
Brady spoke with reporters on a conference call Wednesday afternoon and revealed he recently taped an interview with Mahomes for Sunday’s pregame show. And if you’re Fox, of course you want to air a sit-down between Brady and Mahomes, but is the NFL comfortable with it?
The NFL appears comfortable with the Brady-Mahomes interview now, but they didn’t seem that way a few months ago. The league placed a set of restrictions on Tom Brady’s role as a broadcaster because of his minority ownership with the Las Vegas Raiders. Those restrictions included prohibiting him from taking part in production meetings, visiting team facilities and having conversations with players or coaches ahead of games.
Brady, however, interviewed Mahomes in October, ahead of the Chiefs-San Francisco 49ers game on Fox, somewhat curtailing the restrictions by conducting the sit-down at a hotel instead of a team facility. And while their conversation was more personal in nature and made no mention of gameplans or strategies, it caused enough concern throughout the league to warrant the consideration of imposing more restrictions on Brady as a broadcaster.
Fast forward to Super Bowl week, where the NFL has had somewhat of an about-face, announcing Brady will be able to take part in production meetings, although he still won’t be permitted to attend team practices. But with those loosened restrictions, the NFL apparently now has no issue with Tom Brady interviewing Patrick Mahomes a second time.
It would have been a miss by the NFL to prohibit Brady from interviewing Mahomes. With 10 Super Bowl rings and 14 appearances (soon to be 15) between them, airing an interview of Brady talking to the quarterback who is chasing down his legacy is exactly what the NFL and Fox should want as part of their epically long pregame coverage. But it only furthers the point that no one knows how to handle having a minority owner as a lead analyst. In October, Brady interviewing Mahomes was viewed as a problem. In February, it’s not.
And that’s the biggest issue with this entire ordeal, the lack of transparency. The NFL opened the season by imposing restrictions on Brady, implying they were concerned about having a minority owner in the booth. They’ve spent the ensuing months trying to temper those concerns, at least publicly. Thankfully, the NFL was able to recognize that having Tom Brady talk to Patrick Mahomes before the Super Bowl was an opportunity that shouldn’t be passed up.
