Fox is making a big deal about the official arrival of Tom Brady as the analyst on the network’s No. 1 broadcast team, complete with Brady getting top billing over the game he’ll be calling to launch the next phase of his career. Meanwhile, the guy he’ll be replacing is getting the Voldemort treatment.
Via Jon Lewis of SportsMediaWatch.com, Greg Olsen wasn’t mentioned at all as part of the Fox upfront presentation that marked the official start of Brady’s 10-year, $375 million arrangement.
Olsen presumably will slide to the No. 2 team, taking a massive $7 million pay cut for doing the same job he did last year. A vague impression has emerged that he’ll have the ability to leave for another network that would be ready to offer him the analyst chair on the top broadcast team. The problem, however, is that those jobs don’t come open very often.
The situation makes Olsen, a popular announcer who rarely has experienced much social-media harassment, into a more sympathetic figure. And it will provide critics of Brady with a fairly simple apples-to-apples basis for comparing their performances.
Brady will indeed be criticized. People will search for flaws. If they don’t find any, they might make some up. He’s already dancing on the line of overexposure, if not pitching a tent on the wrong side of it. People will be predisposed to resent him. He’ll need to find a way to combat that. He’ll also need to be ready to have thicker skin than he had while getting roasted.
The roast might have been calculated to humanize him. He now regrets doing it, for the collateral damage it caused to his family.
Regardless, the circumstances are far from ideal. As evidenced by the fact that one of the best NFL analysts will be nudged to the backseat for someone who has never called a game.
Yes, Brady will work hard. But hard work is a given in that job. If you don’t work hard, it shows. Will he be comfortable speaking in quick soundbites when the red light goes on? Will he be able to say things that enhance the presentation? Will he spend too much time in the I/me/we arena that kept other great players (like Joe Montana) and coaches (like Bill Walsh) from thriving as broadcasters?
Brady earned everything he got as a football player, even if a few footballs were deflated to expedite the process. In his new endeavor, he’d being airdropped on top of the mountain, with the guy who actually climbed it being shove back down to basecamp. It doesn’t mean Brady will or won’t succeed in the new role. It just raises the stakes — for everyone.
Except Olsen.
