Tom Brady has opened up about his preparations to call NFL games on FOX ahead of his first full season as a commentator following his unofficial debut in the UFL Championship booth.
Appearing on FOX’s ‘Herd with Colin Cowherd’ on Wednesday, the seven-time Super Bowl champion, 46, revealed his first game nerves as an analyst before the Birmingham Stallions defeated the San Antonio Brahmas (25-0) last week. .
“I would say yes,” he responded to a question about whether he noticed the difference between himself practicing his commentary and analysis, and himself live. ‘And I also think there is still a lot of room for improvement…
“It’s almost like when I was a player, I never felt like I did things the right way. There were games where I would go in and thank God (because I would say to myself), ‘I’m the worst quarterback in the game.’ NFL.” Why would they want me to play quarterback for this team?
‘And I’m sure I’ll feel that way here at FOX. Immediately after finishing a game (I tell myself) ”God… I didn’t even give them what they wanted…”
METICULOUS: Tom Brady revealed he prepares for the stand like he does as a QB for games
He continued: ‘It’s a very challenging thing in your own mind. I asked some people “How do you know you did a good job?” And I think for me a lot of this is going to come down to preparation and did I feel prepared?
‘Did I feel like our team was prepared to give them the best over the course of the week so that we could give ourselves the best opportunity to be successful for the fans because really the game is the show? We were there to add our opinion and our analysis, but it’s also “Do we feel like we contributed to the broadcast?”
“And from my standpoint, I’m going to work as hard as I can…the process, as you (Cowherd) talked about before, is to make sure I deliver because I don’t want to let anyone down.” …I don’t want to disappoint the people at FOX. I certainly don’t want to disappoint the great NFL fans either.”
Brady will surely remember his debut in the booth alongside Curt Menefee and FOX’s Joel Klatt when he was loudly booed in St. Louis, where he and the Patriots caused an upset by defeating the local Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI (2002), the first title from The New England Dynasty.
The seven-time Super Bowl champion admitted he wants to be really efficient with his time
“The only way I knew how to combat the nerves and anxiety of the game was to prepare,” the five-time Super Bowl MVP said of his early days as an NFL player. “So I was someone who became very, very good at my preparation throughout my career.
‘I became very efficient with my time, especially because you add a lot of other things to your life, like children, you know, that’s a big addition.
So it’s “How can I prepare?”, knowing that I have other things going on in my life and I really want to be efficient with my time to make sure that the time I spend preparing is really worth it.
“I’m working on things that will actually be added to the stream rather than just working on things to work on that will never actually appear.”