Tony Romo has lived the ups and downs of being among TV's highest-profile personalities - and not just in sports, as by the time 127 million people are watching him work the Super Bowl ...
Yeah. That's high-profile.
And it is in that vein that the Dallas Cowboys ex QB can speak in a unique way about what Tom Brady will experience next year as a first-time broadcaster.
"I think it was a genius decision by him,'' Romo said, "to wait a year coming out and prepare himself.
Brady of course retired a year ago with his record-seven Super Bowl rings all locked up ... and has spend the months parenting and partying and investing and, Romo testifies, studying.
"I’m excited for him,'' Romo told The Athletic's Richard Deitsch. "Tom will exhaust every resource to be as good at this as anybody. I think me and him have similar traits in that we’re going to try and work as hard as humanly possible to be as good as we can be at anything that we care about ...
"He’s doing that. He’s going to do a great job. I think he’s going to be outstanding.”
Romo has called two Super Bowls for CBS and while he is widely regarded as one of the best analysts in the sport, he is also a lightning rod for criticism. And of course another former Cowboys QB, Troy Aikman, as a centerpiece of ESPN's "Monday Night Football'' (and before that, FOX), knows all the same ropes.
It was Aikman's move from FOX that coincided with the network's decision to make its future investment in the Patriots legend Brady. So next year he will be replacing the very capable Greg Olsen as the network's No. 1 analyst on the top crew each Sunday.
That will mean Brady will be the guy to call Super Bowl LIX in his first season as a broadcaster. ... and it will mean Brady will be subjected to the same criticism that Romo and Aikman get - with all the "genius'' he can manage to survive it.
More must-reads: