It’s hard to argue there’s a more Michael Jordan-esque figure in the NFL than former quarterback Tom Brady. Brady’s legendary career saw him play past his forties and win seven Super Bowl rings.
However, things after retirement haven’t gone quite as smoothly for Brady.
Brady has transitioned to the broadcast booth for FOX to call NFL games, and it’s been anything but a seamless switch for the NFL legend. Fans have complained about Brady’s performance all season. According to one writer for The Athletic, Brady’s career in the booth may end up short.
Richard Deitsch of The Athletic has predicted that Brady will leave FOX before the contractual conclusion of his 10-year, $375 million deal.
“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.”
Fans reacted to the take on social media.
“Well, he gave it go, just don’t think it was for him,” one fan wrote on Twitter.
“Fox pays Brady a lot of money to talk about football. No one else is going to pay Brady that much money to do anything else. All the media people trying to oust him from the job (via unrelenting criticism) are jealous, they think they can do better, etc. Talking heads say nothing,” added one fan.
“I’ll give him another year or two. What I think will happen is in order for him to improve on his broadcasting skills, I think fox will give him some UFL games to call in the spring. And he’ll call them on a weekly basis. In that time, we will see how much improvements he makes,” wrote someone else.
“Because he is an owner I understand what NFL did..but listening to him, you can tell he doesn’t talk to anyone on the teams that are playing and just doesn’t have a sense of what’s going on……those production meetings are important,” another person added.
“It was pretty ridiculous for FOX to just throw that insane pile of cash at him with pretty much zero experience. I get it. He’s Tom Brady. That doesn’t mean he can magically wave a wand and be the best broadcaster ever,” one fan added.
It’ll be interesting to see if Brady improves enough to stick around long-term.
