Tom Brady is in the first year of a lucrative 10-year, $375 million deal with Fox Sports and his acclimation to the broadcast booth has progressed as expected. The seven-time Super Bowl champion operated under an intense microscope for the first several weeks but now everyone seems to have a general idea of what he is and is not behind the microphone. That will ramp up again as the NFL playoffs begin and Brady turns in his year-end report in the form of Super Bowl LIX. While trying to assess how good Brady is on television is a cottage industry, figuring out how long he'll do it for is a more challenging endeavor—and has been ever since his decade-long contract was announced.
Andrew Marchand of The Athletic, who has been skeptical from the start that Brady would be with Fox for the duration of that 10-season agreement, is out with a new prediction about this marriage's expiration date. And it's sooner rather than later:
Perhaps the most surprising thing about such a forecast is that it wouldn't really be that much of a surprise at all. With the caveat that all of these predictive pieces rely on the author going out on a limb, the fact that it's conceivable to imagine Brady dipping in for a year and then dipping out is not the greatest sign for all involved.
If that happens, Fox's decision to demote Greg Olsen for a single, chaotic year of someone learning on the job will look even more dubious. On the other hand, it would free up significant money. Look, Brady loves to compete. And being a part of an organization going for another Super Bowl seems more rewarding than trying to please sports media bloggers for a solid broadcast. It was easy to find predictions that he'd never work a single game for Fox last year and now he's nearing the end of year one.
We'll see.
