Tom Brady is on the other end of the phone line from Miami, going behind-the-scenes of his daunting rookie year as an NFL TV analyst.
During postgame review sessions of his performances, he would say:
“Why’d I say that?”
“I didn’t like that.”
“That made no sense.”
He wasn’t alone.
Considered the greatest NFL player of all time, Brady was learning a new job — with around 25 million viewers judging each syllable every Sunday afternoon — but he felt like he had training wheels on, trying to find his balance and some success as the season progressed, but never a full rhythm.
“The training wheels come off, and then you have to ride slowly,” Brady told The Athletic.
He wasn’t bad as a rookie, but he wasn’t great either. He showed some flashes, but not consistency. He would have pages and pages of notes that dulled his natural reactions. It was “TMI” — too much information.
“I used to say, ‘All the stuff I prepared, I could read from start to finish in a three-hour broadcast, and I wouldn’t get through all the information,’” Brady said.
The year ended with Fox producing a strong Super Bowl that attracted a record-setting 127.7 million viewers watching the Eagles beat the Chiefs.
Brady, though, was pedestrian. He was more bus rider than bus driver, picked up by the pros around him, as opposed to leading them.
This season, he audibled, relying less on overloading himself with outside voices and reams of notes and began scouting the teams as if he were going into sessions with his old Patriots offensive coordinator, Josh McDaniels.
“I started to transition this year into, ‘Let me do more of how I did it as a quarterback,’ because that’s really where my comfort is,” Brady said. “As opposed to, ‘Let me try to prepare as a broadcaster.’”
As his second year closes, Brady has moved to the top of the analysts’ game, where he is now rightly mentioned among the best in the business as he and Fox conclude their season with the NFC Championship Game on Sunday in Seattle.
This upgraded version of Brady is what Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks and network president Brad Zager envisioned when they recruited Brady during the NFL broadcasting frenzy of 2022.
In the wake of Tony Romo’s 10-year, $180 million contract with CBS, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman left Fox for ESPN in five-year deals that totaled $165 million combined as part of what was the craziest offseason in NFL broadcasting history. It created the opening for Fox, which had already developed Greg Olsen into a future top analyst, but decided to make a run at the iconic Brady.
In March of that year, discreetly in a Bel-Air hotel, Shanks and Zager met with Brady and one of his representatives, Stephen Dubin. Brady had never shown interest in being a broadcaster, but Shanks and Zager presented to Brady that he would be able to highlight the game he loves in front of the biggest audiences.
While the 10-year, $375 million deal ended up being the most lucrative for a sports media personality in history, everyone in that initial meeting had to be convinced Brady actually wanted to do it.
“To do this job right, you are going to have to want to talk, and you are going to want to talk about football,” Zager told Brady.
After winning seven Super Bowls, there is nothing that Tom Brady loves more than talking football. And it shows, especially at the end of his second season.
“This is Tom Brady, the broadcaster,” Zager said. “I think in Year 1, you were seeing Tom Brady, the Hall of Famer, the greatest quarterback of all time, getting comfortable broadcasting. Now, you are seeing Tom Brady, with all the accolades still, but as a broadcaster.”
The story of how Brady went from TMI to the “TB12” method as a broadcaster in Year 2 has the same teamwork principles as his Patriots dynasty years.
This time, his broadcast partner, Kevin Burkhardt, his producer, Richie Zyontz, his director, Rich Russo, and the rest of the Fox crew are playing the weekly roles of his old mates, Bill Belichick, Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman.
“I don’t think it’s kind of like a team — it’s 100 percent a team,” Brady said. “And it’s 100 percent an orchestra. There’s a conductor of the orchestra, which is our producer, and we’re all playing our part. We’ve got so many other people working in coordination. And if you’re out of rhythm, the broadcast will feel it.”
In Year 1, Brady relied on his teammates to set the tone. In Year 2 …
“Tom’s the quarterback,” Burkhardt said. “We’re trying to be a good teammate and get open on third down for him.”
One of the biggest reasons a network signs Tom Brady is for the spectacle. The NFL is by far the most watched and most valuable form of entertainment in the United States and maybe the entire world.
More than 80 percent of the top rated shows in 2025 were NFL games, led by the Super Bowl with those 127.7 million viewers. Even then, Brady in the booth is like nothing that has ever happened previously in sports TV, both for his legendary status and unprecedented paycheck.
While almost all modern day all-time quarterbacks go into TV post-playing, Brady enters each stadium with every eye on him that is at a different level than Aikman or Romo.
“It’s freaking insane,” Burkhardt said. “You are walking around with one of the most recognizable, if not the most recognizable, people on earth.
“It’s like walking in every week with the Beatles.”
During Burkhardt and Brady’s first NFL live practice game between the Los Angeles Rams and Dallas Cowboys in August 2024, the Cowboys’ Micah Parsons and Trevon Diggs stopped warming up to take off their helmets for a picture with Brady.
“That’s a little different,” Burkhardt said.
During halftime of games, Brady needs security to go to the bathroom. While Brady is very amenable to everyone who approaches for a selfie or an autograph, Burkhardt said, if not for the assistance, Brady would not make it back for the second half because he would be stopped so much.
Before becoming partners, Burkhardt and Brady did not really know each other. Brady once said something nice in passing, wishing Burkhardt success when Burkhardt landed at Fox and called a Patriots game. That was it.
After retiring from playing and with his Fox mega-deal signed, Brady took a gap year during the 2022-23 season. In November 2023, Fox brought him in for his first day of training on the network’s Century City lot in Los Angeles. Shanks and Zager explained the business to him and took him for lunch before Burkhardt showed up in the afternoon as if it were a blind date.
“It was like Chuck Woolery,” Burkhardt said, referencing the old TV dating show, “Love Connection.” “What do you want to know?”
Brady put on a television headset for the first time next to Burkhardt that day and the duo has not looked back.
Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady found easy chemistry as early as their first practice session together. (Brad Zager / Fox Sports)
While the man Burkhardt succeeded, Buck, has probably taken over Al Michaels’ title as the best current NFL play-by-play announcer in the game, Burkhardt has been the perfect partner for Brady because Burkhardt’s unselfish style has given Brady an easy runway after plays to shine.
They both value their friendship, golfing last offseason with Brady asking Burkhardt, “What do you think the broadcast should be?”
Burkhardt’s answer was that it should feel like people are just sitting with them, enjoying the game. It does this season, in part because it is so apparent that they both love being there together.
They are kindred spirits, and Brady, who looked up to the likes of former Patriots such as Rodney Harrison and Troy Brown, and has seven Super Bowl rings with a variety of teammates, gave Burkhardt the highest of compliments.
“I love Kevin,” Brady said. “He’s like ‘a brother from another mother.’ We have a bond for life. He’s a world-class person. He is one of the most genuine, thoughtful, caring people I’ve ever been around.
“Not only that, he is so talented in what he does. He’s so embracing of everybody around him. It’s an amazing quality.
“I value Kevin as much as anybody I’ve ever worked with.”
The duo look at each other during broadcasts all the time and have little inside jokes that they are not even sure the audience gets. They say, “Wow,” a lot, which may not be taught at broadcasting schools but is similar to what fans on their couches are saying after big plays.
During Brady’s rookie year, as he became more comfortable, he had the telestrator moved from the outside of the booth to between them so he was talking to Burkhardt and not turning his back on him to draw.
“It allowed us to have a conversational tone,” Burkhardt said.
When Fox approached Brady about broadcasting, Brady wasn’t sure. He didn’t really know what was next and, in fact, after the meeting with Shanks and Zager, Brady un-retired to play another season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
For Brady, there would always be post-retirement options, and there have been. He is a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders and currently is involved in their coaching search, as part of a larger role in their front office, which he balances between his Fox duties.
“My preparation is very much centered around what I have to do in broadcasting,” Brady said of his management role. “I love, obviously, having a chance to be involved with the Raiders. To be a former player and have a minority ownership is like a dream come true.
“I couldn’t afford to pay to be a general partner. I did very well in my career. It’s awesome to kind of help shape and strategize and be a visionary for a team. I love being involved in football.”
That is what you will hear on Sunday as Fox has its final NFL broadcast of the season when the Los Angeles Rams face the Seattle Seahawks for the chance to go to the Super Bowl, stakes that Brady is more familiar with than anyone in the world. The TV crew will arrive in Seattle on Saturday and Brady will have a game plan ready for the full Fox team.
He has cut down on reading everything and instead scouts each team as if he may strap on a helmet Sunday. On Saturday night at the network’s hotel, Brady will lead a session with the entire crew, in which he will explain what he thinks will happen and why.
“I’m not into generic thoughts,” Brady said. “There is a nuance to every game. There is a strategy matchup to every game. I try to determine how I think the games are going to go. That is kind of what I do in my Saturday night meetings.”
The whole Fox team will know what to look for during the game with Brady leading the No. 1 crew.
“It’s always our goal here at Fox, everybody knows we are around,” said Zager, referring to him and Shanks. “But the more the crews are little families and have each other’s backs, the better.”
After the film session, Brady and the Fox team go out to dinner and bond some more. This is the last meal of the 2025-26 season, which is a bit of a melancholy feeling.
“It will definitely be a little sad on Saturday night after our dinner, knowing that Sunday’s our last game of the year,” Brady said.
As the Seahawks and the Rams will be vying to go to the Super Bowl, there will be no doubt about who is leading Fox’s broadcast.
“If you are asking me, it’s the analyst’s show,” Burkhardt said.
To Brady, “the game is the magic” and he is already planning for next year, perfecting the TB12 broadcasting method after shedding TMI.
“Even now, I probably have too much information,” Brady said. “I think next year I’m going to streamline it even more.”
