Commentary: Reflecting On Tom Brady Vs. Social Media Color Commentary

One of my favorite things to do is read social media comments after reading an article. Oftentimes, people seem to get absolutely irate over really trivial things — like rich, handsome, but incredibly mediocre color commentators named Tom Brady.  

That’s right, folks, social media and football fans are in a lather over his commentating incompetence. Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl champion and one-time husband, has provided one on-air goof after another, which I personally find more entertaining than a smooth talker telling me things not all that interesting about a child’s game.

Picture the scene: John Q Sports Fan sitting in his man-crush jersey amidst empty Doritos bags and Mountain Dew cans all hopped up on Red Dye No. 40 and high fructose corn syrup, ready to explode when he doesn’t hear perfect elocution skills from an ex-athlete. 

During last week’s Green Bay Packers-Philadelphia Eagle game, Brady referred to the Eagles as the Phillies, Philadelphia’s baseball team, then corrected himself and said, “I meant Philly.” Not so unforgivable to most, but to social media color commentators, it’s enough to send someone over the edge — if they can see the edge from their parents basement.

Later in the broadcast, Tom Terrific referred to Packers’ running back Josh Jacobs as Brandon Jacobs. Are you serious? How could anyone possibly confuse two people with the same last name? You can almost hear a proud sports fan’s thumbs frantically nubbing his outrage on X, the artist formerly known as Twitter. 

Those two gaffs came on the heels of Brady forgetting the name of one of the teams that beat the Packers during a recent broadcast. This could be good old-fashioned forgetfulness, the fact that he didn’t do his research, or maybe it was that the former Mr. Bundchen took numerous hits to the head from 300-pound football players well into his 40s. That is no laughing matter, but might help us find forgiveness for such an atrocity.

In addition to Brady’s confusion, there are times when his broadcast partner is talking that Brady nods incessantly, which is enough to make someone carsick. 

This is Brady’s first year in the booth. He signed a 10-year contract to make $375 million to make comments like “That was a nice catch,” “the coach does not look happy,” “Patrick Mahomes is a really good quarterback,” or “If they wanna win this game, they’re gonna have to score more points than their opponent.” 

Brady isn’t great when it comes to the art of announcing and or performing. But let’s calm down, sports fans. Personally, I find his bloopers crazy entertaining, almost as entertaining as reading the comments from people losing their mind over sports commentary and sometimes even more entertaining than the actual game.

Brady might actually be underpaid.  

Editor’s note: For more movie and entertainment talk, join Pete Schwaba weeknights from 6 p.m. to 8 p .m. for “Nite Lite” on the Civic Media radio network.