Tom Brady, right, talks with Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy during the first half of a preseason NFL football game against the Los Angeles Rams, in Inglewood, Calif. on Aug. 11.Ryan Sun/The Associated Press
After he’d called his first real game on Sunday, the NFL put together a YouTube reel of Tom Brady’s best colour-commentary moments. Three-plus hours of jibber jabber boiled down to two minutes of rhetorical gold.
It contained these classic observations:
“That’s why he’s reigning defensive player of the year.”
“What a catch. And what a throw.”
“That was a pretty easy one from inside the five there.”
The kindest thing you can say about Brady the commentator is that he is a work in progress. He isn’t smooth and assured like Troy Aikman. He doesn’t predict the future like Tony Romo. He doesn’t go for the eyes, as Cris Collinsworth will occasionally do.
Brady comes from the broadcast school of saying obvious things in a portentous way. His presentation is a bit Count von Count from Sesame Street – one dropped ball, two missed tackles, three big points.
Pre-game, the Dallas Cowboys extended Dak Prescott with the richest annual quarterback contract in league history. Brady was set to call the Dallas game. What luck. An early opportunity to get Brady loosened up by talking about the NFL’s three favourite things – stars, money and the Cowboys.
Brady took the ball from the studio hosts and just sort of stood there with it. Repeatedly prompted to say something insightful, he couldn’t do any better than reading out cutlines.
Why did Dallas sign Prescott now?
“They believe in him as a leader,” Brady said, and seemed to seriously think about leaving it there. When it occurred to him that he should say more, he waded into a deep thicket of clichés about “great work ethic” and “sets the example.”
The smart play would have been to say something that sounds bold. Something like ‘Dallas is my Super Bowl favourite this year.’ A critic doesn’t have to be right. He just has to make waves.
Brady couldn’t get anywhere close to a definitive statement: “We’ll see what he does this year. The hopes are high. There’s big expectations …”
Wake me when he’s done.
Fox has paid Brady an absolute packet to front their coverage for the next 10 years. Even after Prescott signed his US$240-million deal, Brady still had the biggest contract of any football person at the Dallas-Cleveland game.
On the evidence, Fox has bought itself a serviceable human widget. As a part of a bigger machine, Brady works. Looks good on camera. Great smile. Knows what he’s talking about, even if he can’t articulate it and has zero sense of humour.
Plenty of people hoped Brady would be a dud. That’s how it works with great athletes and second career acts. People loved and envied them in uniform. Now it’s time for them to pay for making everyone feel something.
But the initial sneering is a temporary state. Good colour guys are the tatty blanket you’ve had forever. They don’t last so long because they’re the best people for the job. They last because they are audio-visually habit forming. Nothing will make you feel more old than the first time a colour guy you grew up with dies.
Brady will reach that level. He has to. Both Fox and the NFL have too much prestige tied up in him.
Until then, his main purpose is to consolidate the football aristocracy. As the newest arrival at court, Sunday was Brady’s debut, and not just in the booth.
The first person they sent him to was Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Jones could use the help.
Every time you hear his name now, it’s connected to some sort of unsavoury litigation.
Then last week, a Washington Commanders executive was caught in a journalism stunt talking out of school about the NFL. The poor guy was set up on what he thought was a Hinge date, put on spy cam and convinced to start showing off.
He had some rough things to say about the Dallas boss, questioning his basic character, as well as claiming that Jones “really runs the NFL.”
Time to do some image refurbishment. Whose job is that these days? Apparently, it’s Brady’s.
He was sent out onto the field pre-game to have a man-to-man chat with Jones (while cameras recorded). It wasn’t an interview since Brady asked no questions, but nor was it an off-the-record conversation. It was something meant to mimic documentary.
The most important thing was the visual. The 81-year-old Jones looking invigorated merely by standing beside a resplendent Brady.
Brady played the apprentice’s role, nodding along while Jones droned on about what makes a great quarterback (to the greatest quarterback of all time).
Brady is in the midst of purchasing 10 per cent of the Las Vegas Raiders. This sort of sideline grip-and-grin with the guy who really runs the NFL is the price of admission. It signalled two things – the centre is holding and the future is secured.
Currently, the NFL is moving out of its expansionist era. Having definitively conquered the North American sporting landscape, it’s time to entrench the administration of their empire.
Jones and his crew, including commissioner Roger Goodell, fought the Concussion Wars and won, but their time is ending. Brady won’t be the king of whatever comes next, since even great quarterbacks don’t have that kind of cash. But if he’s willing to tug the forelock, he can be the public face of the next ruling clique. A sort of commissioner sans titre.
In the past, all this backroom action would have taken place out of sight.
Now it’s being televised live. Critics cozying up to the owners; future owners pretending to be critics. And what are the customers supposed to do? Complain? Threaten to stop watching? They’ve already tried that a few times. Football kept calling their bluff.
So this is Brady’s new job, which is a lot like his old job – there is a playbook; to succeed, he just has to stick to it.
The goal of this new role isn’t to be interesting or, God forbid, provocative. It’s be as safe, boring and pliant to power as he can manage.