Drew Brees told anyone who would listen that he believed he could be one of the best analysts in the business. NBC believed him, too. They hired him in 2021 straight out of retirement and put him on Notre Dame games, in the Football Night in America studio, and eventually into a wild card playoff game calling Raiders-Bengals. The network had bigger plans for him. They saw Brees as Cris Collinsworth’s eventual replacement on Sunday Night Football, someone who could bring the same credibility and football IQ that Tony Romo brought to CBS.
As we all know, it didn’t work out that way. Brees was out after one season, and it took him three years to get another shot.
Fox brought Brees in mid-season after firing Mark Sanchez following his arrest in an October altercation in Indianapolis, where he was stabbed and charged with felony battery. That put Brees on Fox’s No. 3 crew with Adam Amin, who joined the Awful Announcing Podcast this week and talked about what it’s been like working with someone getting a second chance in the booth.
“It’s pretty obvious he has studied, he’s watched, he’s talked to different guys, I’m sure,” Amin told host Brandon Contes. “I’m sure he’s gone out of his way to be like, ‘Hey, what’s going to help me get better? How do I get better at this?’ He takes coaching really well.”
Amin would know. He’s been through this before with analysts making the jump to the booth, from Mark Sanchez to Adam Wainwright and A.J. Pierzynski on baseball. He’s developed a reputation for getting good stuff out of recently retired athletes, and he seems to understand that the transition from playing to broadcasting requires actual coaching, not just throwing someone on air and hoping their credentials carry them.
And with Brees, Amin said the approach has been methodical. The former New Orleans Saints quarterback has been self-scouting his own work the same way he would’ve broken down film during his playing days, watching his calls back and identifying areas to improve.
“The things that he has worked on on his own, how he self-scouts, like that’s very much appreciated,” Amin said. “And that tells me that he cares. And that’s half the battle.”
The other half is building chemistry, and Amin didn’t have much time to do it. They got paired up in November without an offseason to get to know each other or any practice runs. Amin talks to Brees about his kids, about coaching his son’s high school team in California, which just lost in the state playoffs. He asks about life outside of football, the kind of conversations that let you actually get to know someone instead of just working next to them.
“That’s an easy way to just show that you care and show that you have interest,” Amin continued. “I have interest in him as a human being and I want to know what makes them tick. And the more you know about each other, that makes things easier to build that rapport and to build that chemistry because you feel trust.”
Amin’s confidence in Brees isn’t just about the work ethic, though. He made it clear he understands what he’s working with.
“Drew is right there at the very, very, very top,” Amin said when asked about working with a first-ballot Hall of Famer. “He wants to be great at this and believes he can be and will be. And so my job, it’s actually easier in that sense because I know what his goal is. He wants to be one of the best, if not the best, to do this.”
That ambition is what got Brees into trouble the first time. He walked into NBC believing he’d be great immediately, and when he wasn’t, there was nowhere to hide. But according to Amin, Brees seems to understand now that wanting to be great and actually being great are two different things. And the early returns — for that matter — have been promising. Awful Announcing’s Brendon Kleen wrote after Brees’ second game with Fox that he was “far better than I expected,” noting that Brees avoided the long pauses and silence that ruined his NBC playoff debut and showed he’d been studying the game.
Whether that’s enough to get Brees where he wants to be remains to be seen. But at least this time, he’s doing the work to find out
