Hot New Predicitions Claim Tom Brady Will Never Work the Fox Broadcast Booth Again
In a 2024 in which Americans were divided on practically every topic, from the most mundane to the future of the republic, there was one issue that seemed to unite everyone. And that was Tom Brady's first season as a TV analyst. Which practically the entire country seemed to agree was not very good. Which is to say, everyone but the most die hard Brady stans and his close personal friends he's on a first syllable basis with:
That's right. Tom's buddy Jer enjoyed hearing him every week. You Philistines who didn't appreciate him didn't deserve him. He casting pearls before swine. He's like one of those shows that gets canceled in the first season because it's too good for Network TV. Like Firefly or Freaks and Geeks.
Which brings us neatly enough to the subject at hand. Which is people predicting that my close personal pal Brady will, in fact, be canceled after this season. Not because he's not good enough for what is, let's be honest, not exactly mapping the human genome. But because of the blatant conflict of interest that came up the second the NFL signed off on him becoming a team owner.
First there was this New Year's prediction from Richard Deitsch in The Athletic:
I’ve previously said I’d put down big money that Brady will not finish his 10-year, $375 million contract with Fox, given all his various business interests away from broadcasting, including ownership. That remains true. The safer prediction would be that Brady walks away from his Fox deal after three or four years. But I’m going bold and saying Brady gets deeper involved with the Las Vegas Raiders in the offseason and decides to go all in with NFL ownership and his production company by the start of the next NFL season.
Then, after this story got out about Brady actively recruiting the greatest coach in sports history for the team he partly owns:
… another voice joined in. This one belonging to former Miami Marlins president David Samson. (Don't ask me why the one asking the question is wearing that thing over his face. I don't care either.):
"Tom Brady is running that team right now - the NFL knows it and FOX knows it and something has got to give.
"So enjoy Tom in the booth because you're not going to see him there next year. He will be in the Raiders front office, he will not return as an analyst for FOX - you cannot be this involved in the operation of a team and be the No 1 analyst. It's an absolute insult to analysts what he's doing. And it's an insult to team president what he's doing.
"You end up doing both of them in a mediocre way… and I promise you he will choose the Raiders. Tom Brady will not be with FOX next season, he'll be full time in the Raiders front office running that team. Period."
Frankly, I don't know how Brady's presence in the booth can be "an absolute insult to analysts" when Tony Kornheiser, Joe Theismann and Dennis Miller (always a big fan of his comedy) used to do it. I think the bar was set a long time ago when Phil Simms farted on Jim Nantz and never saw the inside of a booth again:
But OK. Let's see if these predictions come to fruition. If they do, at least it won't because Brady wasn't good enough. It'll be because he wants out. Because he's got more important things to do than give his opinion as to whether a guy had control of the ball as he got his feet down in bounds. (As late, great, Red Sox broadcaster Jerry Remy put it well into his career, "There are only so many ways you can describe whether or not a guy checked his swing.") Not that he wasn't attracting enough eyeballs to enough screens to justify his salary.
If the GOAT truly is one-and-done, it'll be just like his football career. He'll be walking away on his own terms. Leaving $337,500,000 million on the Fox table for an even better opportunity. Winning at life the way he did on the field. Leaving his chair and his headset to perfectly competent and yet still lesser men, like Greg Olsen. Just don't ever claim he wasn't a success. Either way, he and I will still have each other.