Homecoming King: Tom Brady locks in first Patriots broadcast for Year 3 of massive $375M Fox contract
Tom Brady has returned to Gillette Stadium before, but never quite like this as the former New England Patriots quarterback will call his first game involving his old team since joining Fox’s lead NFL broadcast crew, with the network assigning him to the Patriots’ Week 9 matchup against the Green Bay Packers.
The game is scheduled for Sunday, November 8, at 4:25 p.m. ET in Foxborough, with Brady expected to work alongside Kevin Burkhardt in Fox’s top booth. Fox confirmed the assignment after the 2026 NFL schedule release, teasing Brady’s return with a simple message: “He’s backkkkk.”
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For Patriots fans, it will be a strange and significant moment. Brady spent 20 seasons in New England, won six of his seven Super Bowls with the franchise and became the defining figure of the most successful dynasty of the modern NFL era.
Now, in the third year of his 10-year, $375 million Fox contract, he will analyze the team he once carried.
Brady’s Foxborough return means more
Brady has already been back to Foxborough several times since leaving the Patriots in 2020. He returned as a visiting quarterback with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2021, came back for his Patriots Hall of Fame induction in 2024, and was there again when his statue was unveiled outside Gillette Stadium.
But calling a Patriots game is different. It puts him in the position of assessing the franchise from a distance, balancing neutrality with two decades of history that no broadcast can fully separate from the moment.
The assignment also took time to materialize because of NFL broadcast rights. As an AFC team, many Patriots games are carried by CBS, leaving fewer natural opportunities for Fox to put Brady on a New England broadcast.
The Packers game solves that problem. It’s a national-caliber matchup in Fox’s late window, and both teams made the playoffs last season.
Patriots emotions could complicate broadcast
Brady’s relationship with New England remains powerful, but it has not been entirely straightforward since he moved into broadcasting and ownership.
Before last season’s Super Bowl, when the Patriots faced the Seattle Seahawks, Brady said on the Let’s Go! podcast that he didn’t “have a dog in the fight,” citing the different chapters of his career and his minority ownership stake in the Las Vegas Raiders.
“I don’t have a dog in the fight in this one. May the best team win,” Brady told Jim Gray.
The comment frustrated several former Patriots teammates, including Vince Wilfork and Asante Samuel. Brady later softened the moment on Instagram after appearing with owner Robert Kraft, writing: “You know I got your back RKK – Get that 7th ring so we can match.”
That’s why this Week 9 broadcast will carry more than normal intrigue. Brady is no longer only a Patriots icon. He is also Fox’s lead analyst and an NFL minority owner operating under restrictions tied to his Raiders stake.
Still, the visual will matter most: Brady back at Gillette Stadium, speaking to a national audience while the Patriots play beneath him. For two decades, he controlled the game from the field. This time, his challenge will be to describe it honestly from the booth.
