Former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady is now shifting his focus to his new gig in the broadcast booth, joining Kevin Burkhardt next football season as FOX’s lead analyst for their NFL game coverage.
Brady signed a 10-year, $375 million deal with FOX last offseason following his retirement and will replace their current analyst and former NFL tight end Greg Olsen. Brady joined the "Pat McAfee Show" on Tuesday and spoke about how he’s been preparing for his new role ahead of the 2024 NFL season.
“I’ve been to FOX Studios a few times and done some really dry runs with Kevin who’s tremendous at what he does,” Brady told McAfee. “I’m super excited to join an amazing team, Rich Russo and Richie Zyontz, we talk a lot about football, we talked a lot about how I see the game.”
During his playing career, aside from being widely regarded as the greatest quarterback of all time, Brady was also known for his dedication to preparation; likely bringing that same level of preparedness with him in to the broadcast booth.
Olsen became a full-time analyst for FOX in 2021, being promoted alongside Burkhardt to the network’s No. 1 team ahead of the 2022 season replacing Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. He excelled in the role, but will now be replaced by Brady, who shared nothing but respect for Olsen and his body of work.
“And I think Greg’s done an incredible job, I have so much respect for him, how he approaches his job. He’s super prepared in what he does, I think he does an incredible job every time he’s on. I love listening to him and I’m just gonna go in there and do the best I can do with my own perspective and I certainly have had a unique vision and perspective of the game of 23 years and hopefully I can just provide some insight to all the viewers and all the fans who love the game, who love the sport,” Brady said.
Brady is more than qualified for the job, boasting one of the most decorated resumes in professional sports history with seven Super Bowls, five Super Bowl MVP awards, three NFL MVP awards, and a lengthy list of league records. But Brady believes that his complete experience as a player even outside of his championship success will help him in his new endeavor.
“I’ve been a part of a lot of Super Bowls, championship games, I’ve had some seasons that didn’t go the way we wanted, I’ve have some injuries. Undrafted rookie, I’ve seen guys come in with great expectations and not meet it, I’ve seen underdogs like Julian Edelman come along and make it,” Brady explained.
“So again, I think I’ve had 23 years of just observing and I get to go on now and speak to a wider audience and I used to my body and my brain out there and people would see me kind of lead the team down the field and now I get to do that in a different way using my voice.”
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