Tom Brady made his Super Bowl broadcasting debut on Sunday night as the analyst within the FOX Sports telecast of the game. The Philadelphia Eagles amassed the early momentum to build a 24-0 lead over the Kansas City Chiefs at half, and the team was able to complete the victory and hoist the coveted Vince Lombardi Trophy. Although much of the spotlight surrounded the quarterback battle between Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes, along with the potential for the Chiefs to become the first team to win three consecutive Super Bowl championships, there was a microscope on Brady’s performance as well. Dan Le Batard contended that Brady earned his reported $375 million remuneration within his 10-year agreement, appearing on the pregame show and in several other ventures from FOX Sports.
Le Batard then explained that he did not think Brady was terrible on the broadcast, leading those in the Shipping Container to quickly interject with dissenting opinions. Chris Cote agreed with Le Batard’s take, asserting that Brady was fine and referencing a line from the second quarter in which he said that he had been down by more than 17 points in a Super Bowl. The Chiefs would have had to deliver the largest comeback in Super Bowl history to win the game after going down by 27 points midway through the third quarter. Brady holds the record by overcoming the 28-3 deficit he faced on the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI.
Billy Gil added that FOX debuted a new scorebug to distract people from Brady on the broadcast, a point with which Jessica Smetana agreed. Moreover, she outlined an example in which Brady was asked what the Chiefs would need to do in a certain scenario, leading him to say that the team needed to get a stop. Smetana added that she felt their expectations were too low, hence why they thought it was a decent call of the game.
“It obviously was, but I am grading on a curve,” Le Batard said on Monday’s edition of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz. “She’s also correct that it wasn’t a good broadcast for a good broadcaster…. When you’re trying to say that Mahomes is superhuman and you keep calling him ‘unhuman,’ no. He was not good – he was good for Tom Brady, which is bad.”
Mike Ryan hypothesized that someone compelled Brady to tell some of the stories and recall what he faced battling in Super Bowl championships. Brady informed the audience that he took a 15-minute nap in the hour preceding his first Super Bowl, a stark contrast to how he was unable to sleep the night before the final team he played in the game for the Buccaneers. Although many viewers seemed to find this valuable, Smetana emphasized that it could have been stated on a podcast while someone else informed her what was occurring on the gridiron.
“You’re right that someone got into his ear and said, ‘Tell the stories,’” Le Batard explained, “because when you’re listening to Tom Brady say what it feels like to lose one of those games and that he cannot speak afterward because he’s so shell-shocked after they lose to the Giants because the Giants had the pass rush that Philadelphia had, yeah, those insights were useful during the game.”
Ryan articulated that he has always seen more novelty and value in having one of the greatest players of all time divulging his mindset and insights during the game, indicative of access in which he never had access. Nonetheless, he also wishes that Brady was more charismatic and exhibited more brevity in his statements during the game.
“That’s it, though,” Smetana said. “Early in the game when it wasn’t quite a blowout yet, just vibeless. It was just a vibeless open to the Super Bowl, and I felt very melancholy and malaised.”
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