Tom Brady, in case you didn’t already know, starts working for Fox this fall. On Monday, he appeared on Colin Cowherd’s show (his studio team apparently gets #NoDaysOff) to discuss the next phase of his career.
At one point, Brady talked about how he’ll approach his next job, especially since (as Brady said) he was “hyper-competitive” as a player.
“Certainly, as a broadcaster, I don’t think for me it’s about competition,” Brady said. “I think it’s — for me, it’s about, ‘Did I put everything I could into this? Did I give the fans everything they expected? That’s how I’ll end up evaluating myself and I’ll have to look at myself at the end of every Sunday night and think, ‘Did I do a good enough job? Did I live up to the belief Fox had in me? I met the expectations of my teammates Kevin Burkhardt and Erin [Andrews] and Tom [Rinaldi] and Richie Zyontz and Rich Russo and our whole truck and our whole crew? Ultimately, this is how I will judge myself in this new role.”
That is a noble goal. It’s a high standard. Brady knows a thing or two about setting and clearing the higher bars.
But there’s that nagging question of whether he’ll have the kind of access that will allow him to “give the fans everything they expect” if/when his attempt to buy a piece of the Raiders comes to fruition. Last week, the Commissioner seemed to indicate that they planned a strategy for dealing with the obvious conflict of interest a team owner will have when it comes time to watch practice and otherwise learn about secret information held by any team the Raiders will potentially face, during the regular season or postseason. (This year, for example, the Raiders face the Chiefs a week after Brady works the Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl rematch.)
Although the N.F.L. refused to go into details Regarding the solution that was apparently designed to allow Brady to take a cake-and-eat approach to both owning a team and working as a broadcaster for them all, any restrictions placed on his access will necessarily prevent him from meeting his standard.
Obviously, we don’t expect Cowherd to ask his colleague such a difficult question. That’s why we’re here. To point out the things people around Brady aren’t willing or able to say. Why you need to own part of the Raiders and work as a broadcaster for why did you do that stupid roast? You know, the one you said later you regret what you did.
As for the roast, Brady said he was naive. Apparently he’s also a little naive about his ability to make the best broadcast possible, while not having the best pre-game access possible. And if he’s not naive, he just doesn’t care.
