ESPN's Joe Buck, Troy Aikman discuss Tom Brady bouncing back from rough announcing debut

Tom Brady sounded like a first-year broadcaster when he made his official regular-season announcing debut calling the Dallas Cowboys' 33-17 blowout win at the Cleveland Browns this past Sunday.

ESPN's Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, the voices of "Monday Night Football" broadcasts, believe Brady will bounce back beginning with the Week 2 game between the Cowboys and New Orleans Saints.

"This is a hard job, and we all do our piece of it," Buck said about Brady during a Monday appearance on ESPN New York's "The Michael Kay Show," as Sam Neumann of Awful Announcing shared. "We all have to be able to settle in; know what you need to know. I talked to him on Friday, and I don’t think anybody’s put in more work into being prepared for his first broadcast than Tom did. And now, you have to go forward and settle in. It’s grossly unfair that everybody wants to weigh in after five seconds. That’s not the way it works."

Multiple stories published last week detailed how Brady spent portions of a "gap year" out of the NFL, preparing to replace fan-favorite Greg Olsen as Fox's lead in-game analyst. However, Andrew Marchand of The Athletic mentioned that Brady "came across as nervous about opening his Fox broadcasting career" working alongside play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt at Cleveland's Huntington Bank Field. Awful Announcing's Ben Axelrod wrote that Brady "was more game manager than star quarterback in the broadcast booth" this past weekend. 

Buck nevertheless insisted he believes Brady will eventually "be great" with Fox. Meanwhile, Aikman told The Athletic's Richard Deitsch about how longtime producer Richie Zyontz will help Brady find his voice this season. 

Aikman and Buck previously worked with Zyontz.

"What they were able to do in the truck is adjust their coverage and adjust what they were doing in order to follow what I wanted to see," Aikman said about his experiences with Zyontz. "That was an adjustment for them because most of the analysts at the time I started were really geared for the trenches. ...Then I come in as a quarterback. I see the game much differently. Then think about when I left and [they] had Greg Olsen, so they had to adjust some things for him. I would think that Tom views it more along the lines of the way I do, but they’ll adjust to whatever it is that he sees and how he wants a shot. He’ll be in good hands." 

Brady and Fox agreed to a 10-year contract reportedly worth $375M following the 2021 season. That deal and his generational playing career caused some fans to assume he'd be an instant success in the booth. 

If nothing else, Buck and Aikman did well to remind everybody that, like rookie quarterbacks, Brady is learning while on the job and should be expected to have some rough moments between now and Fox's coverage of Super Bowl LIX in February 2025.