Potential departure of lead NFL analyst could be disaster for Fox Sports
Sunday's NFC Championship Game marked the final NFL broadcast of the season for Fox Sports, with CBS set to air Super Bowl LVIII.
There's also a chance Sunday's game was the last time play-by-play man Kevin Burkhardt and analyst Greg Olsen share the broadcast booth.
In May 2022, Fox announced a 10-year, $375M deal that would make retired quarterback Tom Brady its lead NFL analyst at a date to be determined. After playing the 2022 season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Brady gave 2024 as his start date at Fox.
This wouldn't be such a complicated move for the network if it weren't for Olsen's outstanding performance in his three seasons alongside Burkhardt.
Being a lead analyst for NFL broadcasts is the ultimate target for those on social media. Tony Romo of CBS or Cris Collinsworth of NBC know all about that.
Former NFL player Olsen, however, seems to have won over the NFL community on X, formerly Twitter:
Fox has yet to explicitly state that Olsen will be moved off the lead team. There's always the possibility of a three-man booth of Burkhardt, Olsen and Brady.
Olsen has taken the high road while also being vague about his future, as these comments to Sports Illustrated on Friday show:
"...Whatever team I’m on next year, whatever my future holds, wherever I am, so be it. Obviously I’m on the record about how much I respect Tom. I understand the situation. He’s the greatest football player of all time. I get it. I understand what we all signed up for, but it is not going to alter one thing we do, and it does not take away one thing from what we’ve done."
Brady has remained tight-lipped about the situation as well, but he has become more outspoken than ever in his comments about the current state of the game. In a potential preview of his color commentary, Brady railed against the "mediocrity" of the league last November:
"I think there's a lot of mediocrity in today's NFL. I don't see the excellence that I saw in the past. I think the coaching isn't as good as it was. I don't think the development of young players is as good as it was. I don't think the schemes are as good as they were. The rules have allowed a lot of bad habits to get into the actual performance of the game. So I just think the product in my opinion is less than what it's been."
Brady is a totally unproven commodity, having never done game analysis in his career. The same was true of Romo when CBS signed him immediately after his retirement in 2017. While Romo started out strongly, he has faced mounting criticism recently. Fox has to hope that Brady will click right out of the gate much as Romo did. If he doesn't, it'll be a massive black eye for the network.
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