Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner thinks Tom Brady will have a “challenging” learning curve when he gets in the booth as Fox Sports’ lead analyst.
“That’s one of the challenges as you get into television,” Warner, who is an NFL Network analyst, told The San Diego Tribune. “What am I going to be as an analyst? One of the hardest things is, when you’re a guy like Tom Brady that everybody likes and you want to be liked by people, and you have to figure out how to truly analyze and be critical of what’s going on but not be critical of people.”
Brady will officially join Fox Sports as its lead analyst, calling the NFL’s biggest games, after he hangs up his jersey for good, the network confirmed Tuesday.
The Post’s Andrew Marchand reported Brady’s deal is worth a staggering $375 million over 10 years with Fox Sports.
Tom Brady on the field after Super Bowl LV against Kansas City.AP
Kurt Warner spent 12 years playing quarterback in the NFL before becoming an NFL Network analyst.Icon Sportswire via Getty Images“Everybody’s afraid of, I don’t want to offend anybody, but I also want to do my job and I want to do it really well,” Warner said. “It’s something that I’ve struggled with, because I don’t feel as if I ever attack anybody and say, ‘This person’s terrible.’ But there are times when you go, ‘This isn’t very good. They should do this or that.’
“I’ve seen people take it personally. You can’t just be a nice guy and really be good in this business. Now, calling games can be different than being an analyst in a studio. But at the same time, you’ve got to be able to be critical. . . . For me, I never attack a person, but I always attack a problem.”
Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young, who works as an analyst with ESPN, explained what he believes will be Brady’s “biggest issue” when he gets in the booth.
“When Tom speaks to the press, he’s a master — like Peyton [Manning] and others who were great at this, every time they spoke, they were speaking to their linemen,” Young said. “They were speaking to their teammates, trying to hold them close. Everything was about that. This is a completely different job.
“I think that’s the biggest issue Tom will have. The communication and who he’s speaking to has to change. It’s no longer a way of gathering his teammates, which has been a huge part of his success. Now you’re on TV and you don’t have that same paradigm. And that’s a real shift. If he goes into the job with that same mentality of talking to his teammates, it won’t work. But I know that he’ll have thought that through.”
Time will tell when Brady begins his new broadcast gig. Right now, the Buccaneers quarterback, who turns 45 in August, has one year left on his contract.
The seven-time Super Bowl champion announced the end of his short 40-day retirement in March to return to Tampa Bay to take care of some “unfinished business.”
