“I was stunned at how much more X and O insight and enlightenment Tony Romo provided instantaneously than Captain Obvious Brady did.”
After portraying himself as a Tom Brady superfan for decades on TV, Skip Bayless doesn’t appear to be a fan of Tom Brady, the broadcaster.
Brady is just two weeks into his 10-year contract with Fox to be their lead NFL analyst, but Bayless has seen enough to claim he’ll never be better than a sixth-round broadcaster.
“Analyzing games, on the fly, on live network television, Tom so far is just another sixth-round draft pick, and I am not sure he’ll get a whole lot better,” Bayless said on his podcast.
Bayless spent Sunday afternoon listening to Brady for an entire broadcast on Fox, followed by a full game with Tony Romo on CBS. While Romo may have lost some of his luster with fans in recent seasons, Bayless walked away from his TV much more impressed with the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback than he was with Brady.
“Analyzing games, on the fly, on live network television…Tom [Brady] so far…is just another 6th round draft pick” @realskipbayless is still unimpressed. pic.twitter.com/V8zKOG6f20
— The Skip Bayless Show (@SkipBaylessShow) September 19, 2024
“I was stunned at how much more X and O insight and enlightenment Tony Romo provided instantaneously than Captain Obvious Brady did,” Bayless ranted. “This is something I’d say I have a pretty good feel for because, over the last 20 years, I’ve worked with hundreds of ex-star athletes on live national television, testing their split-second ability to talk the game they played at such a high level.
“You’d be shocked at how many just can’t. They just played. Romo, the undrafted free agent, played with his mind. It’s possible that Tom Brady, the most accurate passer that I ever saw, played more with feel and instincts that are extremely difficult to verbalize and explain on the fly.”
Tony Romo relied on his mind, while Tom Brady relied on feel and instincts. This assessment of those two quarterbacks has never been uttered by any NFL analyst or commentator. Ever. Romo was known as the gunslinger, with Brett Favre’s ability to make the big mistake in the big spot. Brady regularly gets lauded as one of the most intelligent and aware quarterbacks in NFL history.
And Romo has taken that same gunslinger mentality into the broadcast booth. Even fans who love Romo don’t listen to him for his football smarts and astute analysis; they listen to him for his enthusiasm and fan-like passion.
“Maybe Brady spent so many years under Belichick learning to publicly guard what he was really thinking that now Brady’s having trouble spilling the beans on national TV,” Bayless added.
Blaming Belichick and claiming Brady doesn’t have the smarts to be Romo feels like a reach.
Maybe Fox just put insurmountable expectations on Brady for his debut in the booth, and it will take some time for him to figure out the best version of himself on TV. Brady might not end up being a hall-of-fame broadcaster, but he already showed improvement from Week 1 to Week 2, and there’s no reason to think he won’t continue getting more comfortable in the booth.