Tom Brady Can’t Have It Both Ways
Before his first game as a TV color commentator for CBS in 1979, the late John Madden—universally regarded as the best NFL analyst of all time—was told by his producers that broadcast crews typically did not watch the practices of the teams they were covering that upcoming Sunday. The PR reps from each team would meet with the broadcast crew to share any insights and storylines.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]“Nope,” said Madden. “I’ll talk to the coaches.”
Within six months of Madden’s pronouncement, talking to coaches and players—and watching practices—became standard operating procedure across the NFL for broadcast prep. And this tradition has continued to this day.
This season, however, one highly visible analyst, who happens to be the lead color commentator for Fox Sports, broadcaster of this season’s Super Bowl, can’t partake in this valuable pre-game reporting process. He also happens to be the greatest football player of all time.
Given his status as a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, which was approved by the league on Tuesday, Tom Brady, who is earning $375 million from Fox for a broadcasting job, will face restrictions that mean he won’t be able to prep for his role with the same vigor and rigor that Madden, the standard-bearer of this business, could.
Which is a loss for football fans. Because if Brady could apply his work ethic to his Fox broadcaster role in the same manner as he did as a player, he could be great.
We, as viewers, deserve the full Tom Brady.
Brady, who has received mixed performance reviews on his broadcasts so far, now has a material financial interest in the Raiders, thanks to his 5% stake, and Forbes’ latest valuation of the team came in at $6.7 billion. To avoid any potential conflicts of interest in this uncharted dual lead analyst/owner role, and the possibility that he could pass along trade secrets, Brady cannot attend broadcast production meetings with players and coaches, in person or virtually, or have access to team facilities. As an NFL owner, he’s prohibited from publicly criticizing game officials and other clubs, as mandated by league bylaws.
He’s worked under these conditions since the start of the season: Brady and Raiders owner Mark Davis agreed to the terms of the deal in March 2023, but the transaction’s approval was delayed, in part, to resolve these conflicts.
“I’m eager to contribute to the organization in any way I can,” Brady wrote in a letter released on social media Tuesday after his ownership stake became official. “Honoring the Raiders’ rich tradition while finding every possible opportunity to improve our offering to fans … and most importantly, WIN football games. #JustWinBaby. #LFG.”
But information gleaned from talking to players and coaches, and from watching practices, is quite important for a TV analyst. “That’s almost the kind of lifeblood,” says Randy Cross, the three-time Super Bowl winner from the San Francisco 49ers who called NFL games as a color commentator for two decades, starting in 1989, and currently calls college games for CBS.
Cross, who also called New England Patriots preseason games for years, recalls informative meetings with Bill Belichick: the notoriously secretive Pats coach wouldn’t give you much on his players, but he loved talking football history, and those discussions helped contextualize Cross’ calls. “Every week there’s perspective and stories from players and coaches, and personal stuff from them, that you use in a broadcast,” says Cross. “Every single week.”
“Those meetings are the most useful thing we do all week in preparation for the game,” says Don Criqui, the former long-time NFL play-by-play announcer for CBS and NBC. “We have access to information that the audience doesn’t have.”
As announcers build trust and rapport, coaches may open up their playbooks. They’ll on occasion script, say, the first handful of plays for the announcers, or tip them off to an undisclosed injury. Brady won’t be in meetings to glean such insights, and given his stake in another team, players and coaches may be less forthcoming with the Fox broadcast crew, knowing they’ll likely pass intel on to Brady.
“Tom just won’t be as informed as he could be if he wasn’t an owner,” says one NFL broadcast executive, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly about the business. “Plain and simple.”
Brady’s inability to criticize officials and teams is also a disservice to fans. “The reality of this business is that there are a lot of organizations that deserve to be talked about,” says Cross. Self-censorship is the enemy of insight. In the NFC championship game following the 2018 season, for example, the refs missed an obvious pass-interference call against the Los Angeles Rams late in regulation that could have given the New Orleans Saints a trip to the Super Bowl. The Rams wound up winning, 26-23, in overtime. Troy Aikman, then the lead color analyst for Fox, was all over the blown call. “That should have been a penalty,” said Aikman. “It can’t be more obvious than that.”
Could Brady have been as up-front as Aikman? Would he have thrown caution to the wind, risked a fine, and ripped the refs? Sure, Kevin Burkhardt, the Fox play-by-play announcer who works with Brady, could have objected to the call. But fans want to hear the opinion of the seven-time Super Bowl champ. Fox is paying him enormous sums to deliver it.
(Fox Sports declined comment, or to make Brady available to TIME. Brady’s publicist did not respond to an interview request.)
This past Monday night, fans saw Belichick during Monday Night Football criticizing the New York Jets for firing their coach, Robert Saleh, five games into the season. He also took a shot at team’s owner, Woody Johnson. “I’m not a big Jets fan, in case you don’t know that,” he told Peyton and Eli Manning during their “ManningCast.” “That’s kinda what it’s been there with the Jets. They’ve barely won over 30% in the last 10 years. The owner being the owner—ready, fire, aim.”
Belichick’s take was fantastic TV. Could Brady offer something similar? Or will he be, by fiat, the anodyne analyst?
“It’s hard to say you’re serving the viewer if your big-game analyst can’t weigh in in a big spot,” says the broadcast executive.
That’s not to say Brady can’t work around these restrictions, and prove himself a serviceable, if not excellent, commentator. Burkhardt and the Fox broadcast crew can certainly pass along their notes to Brady. He can devour film and work the phones for tidbits: insiders are likely to take Brady’s call. And as a game unfolds, Brady’s real-time expertise could prove invaluable.
“He’s been really, really good, he’s gotten better every week, you can tell he’s working his ass off,” says Al Michaels, who’s in his 40th season as a prime-time NFL announcer. “He has an innate feel for the rhythm of the game. He has a coach’s brain in his head.”
No doubt. But with these “Brady Rules” in effect, Brady the broadcaster is not working at 100%. At the Super Bowl in New Orleans this February, for example, he’ll likely miss out on the week-of-game practices that give analysts a keen sense of game plans, and who teams are homing in on stopping. The 120 million-plus viewers deserve better.
Brady should pick one job—owner or broadcaster—and run with it.