Tom Brady knows he’s walking a delicate new tightrope. As the NFL GOAT shifts over to make his much-publicizes Fox debut as a weekly analyst, Brady also knows he won’t be taking hits from NFL linebackers. Instead, he’ll be taking them from critics, fans, players, and coaches (present and past), along with the vast social media horde that will be itching to get in their shots on the former QB.
Brady is already discovering this. Lesson No. 1 occurred on the Netflix roast he did a couple of months ago when a crack about Bob Kraft’s preference for certain Asian massage parlors from a roaster seemed to get him genuinely ticked off. Lesson No. 2 came yesterday when Brady took a veiled shot at embattled Giants quarterback Daniel Jones, who has a distinct knack for throwing the kinds of interceptions Brady mentioned in an off-the-cuff comment during a Fanatics Fest on Friday at the Javits Center in New York
A new brand of headlines
The former Pats legend has discussed this before. The line in the sand he’s been trying to draw is to keep the families of the players he’s potentially skewing out of the mix, which looks like a solid approach at first glance.
There’s one problem with that strategy: that line basically doesn’t exist. There’s a phantom version of it out there somewhere in the online universe, and you can glimpse it occasionally in the world of physical broadcasts.
But Brady will be taking shots from all sides and angles, and some of them will be personal. In fact, a lot of them will be personal. Nearly everything will be fair game, but this won’t be a scripted Netflix roast where most of the gags are written and screened in advance. Some of what he’ll be dealing with will be absolutely vile, and if Brady responds by getting angry or upset, any controversy will get even worse.
Can Tom Brady find a new layer of insulation?
Fox’s new star has dealt with all of this as a player before, though. His response was to follow the lead of his former coach, Bill Belichick, who was the master of blandness when it came to talking when necessary and saying nothing. The layer of insulation he had as a player was automatic, and as the GOAT, he was mostly able to manipulate it to serve whatever his agenda was at the time.
That layer of insulation is gone, though, and Brady will have to find a new one. His possible model may be ex-players like Troy Aikman, who’s managed to defuse any number of potentially horrific controversies with his casual humorous approach.
But Aikman isn’t Brady, and Brady knows it. Isn’t now, never was. Aikman’s celebrity never came anywhere close to the mainstream variety that Brady has carved out, and Aikman’s notoriety peaked back when he was a superstar in the 90s, punctuated by a few brief moments when his value as an NFL color guy spiked to put him in the $20M a year neighborhood.
At a rumored contract value of $36M per for 10 years, Brady has already almost doubled that amount, and the endorsement deals that are coming his way will undoubtedly dwarf that figure. Which will be fine for Brady, but he’s living in the Land of McAfee now, so how will he feel when his ex-wife and family will also come under fire, not to mention whatever model, actress or ex-model he happens to be dating at the time?
We’ll all be watching carefully as Tom Brady tries to become the GOAT in a new arena, but it’ll be a gladiator battle the likes of which he’s never seen before. Low blows and underhanded shots will be a staple, and in many ways, he’ll be playing a game with no real rules. He’ll get richer for sure, but he may discover that the price he’ll pay will be far more dire than the personal cost that will be part of the payment.