Tom Brady as NFL broadcaster. (Image via Getty Images)
Brady was calling the game with Burkhardt when he suddenly lost the ability to hear members of the Fox production crew.
“Do you want to fess up the mic issue?” he asked. The seven-time Super Bowl champion dropped his large notes board onto the talkback button in the booth. He then could not hear anyone, and he did not know why. Play-by-play voice Kevin Burkhardt later asked him on air to explain. Brady laughed and took the blame, with no excuses for the production crew. The oversized board holds the research he uses to prepare for games. On this day, it got in the way of the call. He did not spot the cause right away. That sounds minor on paper. On live television, it is the kind of problem that makes a booth tense. Burkhardt later put him on the spot.
Tom Brady knocked himself out of the Fox Sports conversation during the Eagles-Rams game on Sunday.
For a quarterback who spent 23 seasons being measured by mistakes, owning this one cost him nothing and probably earned him a few fans. Before his Fox debut, he showed off binders holding every call sheet and scouting report from his 23-year playing career. Fox signed him to a 10-year deal in 2022, and the board in Sunday’s booth looks like the next step of that habit.
Because preparation is how he works. Because he had so much to say, and that he has gotten better at filtering what belongs on air, producer Richie Zyontz has said Brady overprepared last year.
Sitting there, he said, he kept wondering why he could not hear anyone. “it’s my fault the whole time,” he said. He said he would store information going into the season as a broadcaster too.
Brady did not dodge it. He explained that the big, clunky board covered in notes landed on the talkback button. That button lets the broadcast team speak to the production staff away from viewers, so a stray press can scramble the usual flow in the booth. Then came the punchline. Burkhardt got the easy laugh, and Brady took it well. No blame for the audio team, no vague talk of gremlins. The funny part is that Fox knew this about him. Sunday gave that point a very literal twist.