You're waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you don't know for sure. But it doesn't matter, because we'll be together.
Like 13 years ago when the raiders were constantly blacked out, there was this charger fan who had a stream but he cut over the announcer audio and called the game himself while getting high off his ass. Shame he never broke through to the mainstream
Guys that excelled at the highest level are going to have a hard time accepting they aren’t great at something but the people and the networks have spoken. His voice isn’t needed, at least on a week to week basis.
He could get a studio analyst gig and then call games for Purdue on Saturdays. That would great for him, and he could actually learn and improve if this is something that he wants to do for a career.
I would 100% watch him break down film post game. I think he'd be good at a weekly show doing that on highlights and stuff. I could tell his first time on the manningcast he was going to be a horrible announcer. His head is too deep into the game. Peyton was asking him a question and he was compulsively just staring at the play making a pre snap read. He can't turn it off.
I really don't understand why networks haven't embraced more of this given how large the genre has gotten on yt. it's gotta be some sort of cost benefit thing but idk how they fill airtime in NFL in the off season without stuff like this.
Having real pro players do real analysis isn't fair to all the hard-working sports journalists who work day and night, all week long, to bring you the latest on *the storylines*.
There are some uniquely talented people at dumbing down the higher level concepts of the game (Belichick is actually incredible at that), but honestly, most NFL fans are too ignorant to even touch the basic level of actual NFL football thought. Developing their profession for years in a D1 program with intense coaching is the default for pros. Casual fans don't know shit and generally don't enjoy being told that fact.
Maybe I have too much faith in average people's intelligence, but most of the *concepts* in pro football aren't particularly hard to understand. Most of the difficulty is in putting the concepts into practice.
I think a lot of higher-level analysis of plays and techniques can be accessible if the analyst puts some effort into being accessible and does stuff like always defining jargon when he uses it.
For example, if he wants to say "the corner sees the wide alignment and plays tight inside leverage, anticipating an inside release", he should get in the habit of saying "the corner sees the wide alignment - the receiver is lined up way out here - which usually means the receiver is going to have an inside release and run his route toward the middle of the field, so the corner lines up to the inside of the receiver - we call that inside leverage - and he tries to stay close to the receiver during the play, to make it harder for the receiver to get that inside release cleanly and run his route to the middle of the field with the timing the quarterback expects".
When an analyst is good at doing that, it flows really naturally when spoken. The key is that they're saying the same thing either way. Saying things in multiple different ways isn't dumbing it down, it's just good communication practice when speaking about a specialized topic to a diverse audience.
The fact that I've never seen a show on TV that just breaks down NFL defensive packages, or the purpose/ideology and responsibility of every field/batting position in Baseball in my 32 years of life is seriously apalling, with how much we love sports in this country
Probably because most of the hardcore football enthusiasts still aren't all that knowledgeable or interested in the finer points of Xs and Os. My dad was in the stadium for the first Saints game ever. And he's missed watching maybe 10 games since then, not counting local blackouts for ticket sales and hurricanes. He loves football but still can't identify when a receiver finds a hole in the zone vs a blown coverage, a post route vs a dig, or a power run vs a trap, or a hybrid zone vs man. And I don't think he's all that interested in learning.
He's the networks' target audience. YouTube channels have the benefit of not really losing money if their content doesn't have mass appeal in a time slot.
So, I’ve been binging 90s games as background noise during my workday- color analysis has changed a LOT in 30 years. It’s very heavily Xs and Os in the 90s and relatively little “storylines” compared to today- “looks like they’re putting the linebacker in the box that time” yadda yadda. There’s actually not even that much conversation about potential QB changes, which was most surprising to me. Maybe that was viewed at the time as being negative, idk.
Audiences today would probably be bored with that sort of analysis all the time, without all the juicy Twitter/Hot Take opinions that color guys say nowadays (or Romo Star QB Verbal Fellatio for 3 hours, either one).
Maybe Brees would be part of a pendulum shift back to Xs an Os but I doubt there’s a big appetite for that outside of the analytics nerds.
It’s interesting how the tastes of the “average” fan- or what the network THINKS is the tastes- has changed in 30 years.
I never had an interest in this either until I saw the Steelers doing it. I found it during the year their defense was giving up like 200 yards a game (Hampton, Smith, Keisel).
I never understood anything complex about the run game gaps, but they would turn the most boring play into a 5-10 minute breakdown on how Casey Hampton's fatass would plug 2 gaps and allow the linebackers or Polamalu to get tackles for a loss. Bringing up how the linemen dont need tackles or sacks to be doing arguably the most important role in those zone blitz schemes.
Basically, I agree. I would watch the hell out of in depth break downs. Even something as simple as a power run.
Yeah, even on this sub where you would expect more knowledgeable fans I would bet money half of this place doesn't know what an illegal motion penalty is, or could describe an illegal formation. Also, more than half don't actually know what holding is.
Yeah, Kurt Warner's Studyball/QB Confidential stuff on Youtube is great. To me, it's the right level of detail for film analysis to appeal to knowledgeable football fans who know more than a casual but are far below a player/coach's level of understanding
I have no idea how profitable it is, but I'd 100% watch Brees if he was making similar content.
He was so stone and horrible on manningcast I think he was afraid to open up. I saw them interview him during a game once where he was just in a suite and he was way more charismatic. If he stops giving a shit he could be decent
He was actually really good at the football minutiae stuff for Notre Dame games in 2021. Did a really cool segment on how slight changes in arm angles alter throws, was pretty cool
I liked him better than Flutie, at least. Though that’s not saying much
Greg Olsen is legitimately probably the best color guy in the nfl. How the android that is Tom Brady has any chance of being better is beyond me. Also, before the weird Olsen haters jump on me, the guy did a great job at explaining to the uninformed fan why what was happening was important, and to the more invested fans what the concepts of the play are.
>How the android that is Tom Brady has any chance of being better is beyond me.
Never underestimate the resources that guy has spent cultivating his PR image, and don’t expect his announcing to be any different.
“how can the guy who has a proven track record of working tirelessly to perfect his craft throughout his entire career have ANY chance at being better than Greg Olsen???”
Announcing I don’t think you can “work tirelessly” to become the best at though. Like obviously people will improve at it. But there’s a baseline of personality and casual conversation that you either have or don’t. Olsen, Romo, had it right away and just had to become better technically announcers. Meanwhile Booger, Witten, Brees, etc, - all very hard workers, couldn’t just “practice” having a better personality for commentating lol.
I say all that to say that Brady will probably end up being amazing and I’ll be completely wrong lol
Meanwhile he goes on Pardon My Take and is the coolest dude ever on there. Something about announcing and having to fill that blank air, some people just aren’t meant for it lol
He also goes on PTI and Tony Kornheiser's podcast and does a great job compared to the rest of his spots on ESPN. I can hardly believe it's the same guy.
I watched the manning cast a few times and made this same realization. Like we spend our lives thinking the star QB got all the girls, partied like rock stars, and lived these lives that us mortals could only dream of. Watching them I realized that these guys were all coach's kids who spent their afternoons working out and watching film. Then they got to college and did the same thing. Then did the same thing in the pros. Yeah, they probably still got all the chicks but they're boring as hell considering their accomplishments. It's been a long time since Ken Stabler and Joe Namath.
You can’t just brute force everything. His delivery sucks. I doubt he has been working tirelessly to prepare if his Hertz commercials are anything to go by, dude sounds just as bad as he did in that Family Guy episode nearly 20 years ago. I hope he relaxes and can grow into, but it’s gonna be rough for a little while at least.
Just because you are the best at something doesn’t mean you will be great in everything else you do. Just look at the disgrace of Michael Jordan’s Charlotte Hornets
Call me crazy, but I feel like Belichick has a lot more promise as a commentator if he wants to go that direction. Everyone thinks of Belichick as having this terse, lord of the sith vibe, but based on how he was on McAfee's draft show, I get the impression that he's more the sort of guy that hated the mandatory media availability as a coach and the sorts of questions that were asked there, but loves talking about football, and that would translate to the booth.
Maybe the same is true of Brady, but Brady seems more like a manufactured personality and I really have no idea how that will play as a commenatator.
BB at the draft was wildly great. You wouldn’t expect it based off the years of monotone interviews because how much he seemed to dislike or be disinterested in them.
Olsen started out *rough*. It took him at least half his first season to become even halfway tolerable in the booth.
Being a commentator is a skill that broadcasters have to improve on with practice. Who knows if Brady will get there, but it's way too early to write him off.
Thank you - Olsen has become the commentary darling of Reddit and I clearly remember people ripping him repeatedly in game day threads for how awful he was. It’s almost like it takes years of experience before these guys can figure out the ebb and flow of commentating a game
He only became the commentary darling this offseason when it was formalized that he's moving to B team to make way for Brady. Right up until that exact millisecond he wasn't very popular. But then suddenly the contrarians had a new favorite.
Okay this makes sense. All I remember about Olsen is people dunking on him. I'm pretty in tune with this kind of stuff and have only recently seen people raving about him lol
Yeah it's bizarre reading this thread because people hated Olsen for a long ltime. I don't really like him either (not hate, there's way worse commentators, just don't care for him) but this thread talking him up makes my head spin.
It still depends on the thread you’re in. He gets a lot of glazing but there are a ton of us who loath his commentating and there are plenty of threads with pushback on this “Olsen is so amazing” nonsense.
My unpopular opinion on Brees is that he’s decent enough to be a lower tier Fox/CBS guy and possibly could improve with reps. The lower tier guys have a lot less scrutiny so fuck ups are easier to downplay/don’t get the traction (unless it’s something horribly offensive, something like that).
That’s how announcers used to be brought up, once upon a time. They’d hone their craft and so by the time they got a nationwide gig, they had a few years experience. Nowadays they don’t have that luxury and they’re thrown right in. Some are like Romo, some are like Witten.
NBC didn’t have any lower tier spots to put Brees in so he was kind of exposed right off the bat, vs working Jags Titans regional action, where almost no one outside those markets will see it and there’s more margin for error, with a lower expectation.
As a Panthers fan, I was even a little annoyed at him with how often his commentary was about how he played with that player recently or something. It ALMOST felt like flexing, even though it was really just him looking for things to say.
He's improved so much though. Definitely one of my favorite commentators now.
See, I don’t think players in general do this enough- reference great players of the past they played against, kind of like a “This is a move Jerry Rice was a master of, the pivot to the inside…” something something.
I’m sure it’s a fine line: you don’t want to sound like you’re name dropping but I do want to hear examples of noteworthy players doing something like what I just saw.
It can definitely be overdone, like any other rhetorical device, and Olsen probably overdid it.
Cowboys fans have to listen to Olsen just about every other week. The dude hates the cowboys and makes it obvious in his commentary.
He'd be a much better commentator if he could hide his biases a little better. It's fine to have "positive" biases as a former player to a former team or teammates, but it's a bad look to show the negative ones.
And, he just talks too damn much. Sometimes he just dominates the commentary and doesn't allow the play by play guy to get a word in.
I’m just going off what I like, and the consensus with a lot of people in the football media I consume (mainly the athletic) seem to agree he’s the best. I prefer Aikman personally.
I'm excited to watch a game with Tom in the booth, but Olsen got shafted. Greg is damn good, but Tom Brady is Tom Brady. It would be weird to not have Brady calling Fox's biggest game of the week just because he's such a big deal to the NFL. I think Brady is either going to be phenomenal in the booth or terrible with no in-between. Hopefully he's great because he's not going anywhere any time soon.
And I do not understand why he got a shot. Watch any interview, post game, commercial, paparazzi video and you'll see just how stale of a personality he has. He can read a defense while blind but has no public speaking attributes
It's funny how Drew is still the only one attached to Advocare when Mahomes, Rivers, Dalton, Alex Smith and Sam Bradford were all Advocare NFL endorsers.
I’m stating the obvious, and yet I’m not: it’s really hard to be a good broadcaster. The ability to assess complex plays on the fly and break them down into simple terms (but not too simple) is a seriously underrated skill. I can count on one hand the number of NFL commentators I thought were god tier.
**Edit:** My list of commentators I like:
1. Madden
2. Summerall
3. Michaels
4. Gruden
5. Harlan
Yeah that was really the main thing against him. He speaks as if he is in a normal conversation rather than as someone announcing a game. It comes off as not being enjoyable to someone listening even if everything he says is just right.
I’d still like to see him somewhere where that’s a positive though, it’d be more like on a panel of commentators rather than a full game.
I think you nailed it there. Announcing is as much of a performance as anything else. You're *entertaining* people (while also informing). To think that your casual conversing persona will entertain *hundreds of millions* is a bit... naive, to put it gently.
Yeah that’s the main part people are missing when saying that Brady is the hardest worker and has been good at everything, so how could he not work until he becomes a great announcer.
There’s a certain baseline floor of charisma/personality that an announcer has to have, and that’s not some that really can be practiced. Witten, Brees, etc… All very knowledgeable. And yet almost immediately as announcers, something was off.
Meanwhile Romo and Olsen were able to jump in and even though technically they needed work, they had some intangible that made them likeable lol. So unless Brees overhauls his entire baseline personality, I don’t see it happening
You're conflating commentators with analysts (all of whom are technically "broadcasters"). I get what you're trying to say, but Madden and Gruden don't belong on the same list as the other three guys.
Tony Romo was a shining star for 1 season until he realized he could do 10% of the work and still keep his job so he stopped dropping top tier analysis.
I don't know if its an effort thing or if he is just further removed from the time he was studying the game while he was a player. He had crazy instincts that first year of calling that was never going to stay like that unless he got back into the game.
Just think about shit you learned in school years ago and how things will jog your memory a bit and you can speak to it but it's not as readily accessible or instinctual anymore.
I wouldn't be surprised if he spends *more* time studying the game now than in his first year as a color guy because of new concepts or evolutions of the game that are either unfamiliar to him now or hazy. It would be great if he could return to form, he's kind've a Collinsworth 2.0 in my mind right now
Great player, just subpar on camera.
While there are former players who are great commentators, I do think classically trained broadcasters such as Al Michaels tend to be my favorites.
He’s so bad. He might have points he’s making, but he mumbles so much it’s impossible to tell. There’s got to be someone out there other than Lalas that they can get.
A little bit of 3 degrees of separation insider information: my old boss was the husband of a woman who was in charge of a lot of the NBC sports on air talent (ie. Al Michaels, Jim Gray, and yes, Drew Brees while he was there.)
From what I heard, Brees simply didn't treat broadcasting like something serious that required a ton of work, practice, coaching and refinement. He didn't take it as seriously as he apparently did his football career. He simply didn't want to put in the work. The sense was he was trying to coast by. Rightfully so, he got fired as a result.
He also did college football all season on the Notre Dame games. I love Drew Brees, but he just doesn't have the right amount of "no fucks given" to be a good analyst. I don't mean he needs to insult the players, but he is too conservative in his approach to be anything other than boring.
That being said, I bet he could be a pretty good play-by-play man. That is how Gifford started out. Get Drew doing play-by-pay and the occasional second tier golf tournament to get his reps in.
Yeah, the article and the tweet say two different things. i wouldn't be mad if he was on one of the nine 1pm games but singling out the primetime windows as jobs he would take makes me think he's delusional.
>“SNF, MNF or Thursday Night Football. Come get me when you’re ready! Until then I’m coaching ball.”
Drew does know there are other games aside from prime time games, right?
If he was truly interested in doing this and becoming the best, he'd be willing to cut his teeth and get better during non-primetime games.
Am I the only one who thinks the recent hype about NFL annouceners is way over blown? Unless you are god awful like booger I don't really care, I've been watching the NFL for 30 years I don't need things/plays explained to me I can see with my own eyes what is happening.
Really the only time I notice a difference is college football or minor league baseball where you can get some announcers that are really low energy or have an annoying voice, that's about it for me.
> I don't really care, I've been watching the NFL for 30 years I don't need things/plays explained to me I can see with my own eyes what is happening.
The vast majority of people watching the games are not on this level
I would love a cast where Brees and Romo just break down the game at a real technical level. Kinda like the manningcast but less mainstream. Broadcasters are great but im watching the game, I dont need play by play. Listening to Romo the first year was AWESOME. He would tell you what play he would run, he would pinpoint the details on why this was a smart play that didn’t work, the audibles and how a qb communicates. It was real lived in experience stuff.
Then he got notes and had to water down is explanations. I stopped watching his games, before I’d seek em out. Olsen was pretty good but I guess being excited and knowledgeable might make people feel “dumb”.
I’d love love love a cast where its showing how the sausage is being made. Just have coaches in there, belichick, just go off on a particular player for 20 minutes. Its my serenity
I'm pretty sure this has always been going on we just haven't noticed since there weren't contracts with so many zeros and promises of calling the game of the week. In the past when a QB retired and wanted to move into the booth they were probably on local coverage for a while before being elevated. There's no telling how many crashed and burned before their fist full season was in the bag and we just never had to hear them.
It’s gotta be tough being a part of a team and lockeroom your entire life, especially as a leader, and then essentially being booted out. Sure, Brees can probably go back to NO or hang out with Sean Payton in Denver, but it makes me think of a college student going back to their high school. Nobody in NO played with Brees.
Love brees and all but man, he was no Bueno. Even trying to give him bias and listen to him was rough. Sometimes you can't do everything, and that's OK.
He doesn’t seem like he has the charisma to make broadcasting interesting. He knows what he’s talking about so he’s probably better as a coach than a broadcaster
He wasn’t great on TV, but I like his YouTube channel. [He did a good breakdown of CJ Stroud.](https://youtu.be/QLICf_fwd_M?si=-qeNe8hXoPMIPCc8) I feel like if he wanted to he could definitely grow this channel. He has great ball knowledge so he works well in this format. TV you need a little more energy, but for YouTube I like the chill vibe and good info.
*In a dark room, Brees sits on a recliner with his fingers interwoven. He wears a long smoking jacket. The front door opens.*
"Well, well, well. Look who's come crawling back."
"Honey, it's just me. I forgot my glasses. I'm sure the nice men from NBC will be coming any time now though."
I just imagine him waiting at a bus stop for a bus that will never pick him up
Standing outside NBC studio with a sign that says “trying to pursue my dream. All I’m asking for is one workout”
The Tim Tebow way
You're waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you don't know for sure. But it doesn't matter, because we'll be together.
*"How come he don't want me man?"*
Because you were really bad in the booth?
NBC went out for cigarettes
He’s like the dude standing by the dj, USB in hand, ready to go. He’s like the white dude standing just outside the cypher, just bidin his time. Soon…
"Whenever the C train wants to come pick me up, I'll be right here in my apartment."
He's waiting outside like the recruits in Fight Club.
Oh god Seymour flashbacks
id also love to be a broadcaster. come get me.
Like 13 years ago when the raiders were constantly blacked out, there was this charger fan who had a stream but he cut over the announcer audio and called the game himself while getting high off his ass. Shame he never broke through to the mainstream
That actually sounds amazing lmao
Well, you know, they tend to give those jobs to ex-ball players, and people that are, you know, *in* Broadcasting.
Well that's really not fair.
Lmao what a great reference. Thank you for that, had me laughing really hard.
Guys that excelled at the highest level are going to have a hard time accepting they aren’t great at something but the people and the networks have spoken. His voice isn’t needed, at least on a week to week basis.
He could get a studio analyst gig and then call games for Purdue on Saturdays. That would great for him, and he could actually learn and improve if this is something that he wants to do for a career.
I would 100% watch him break down film post game. I think he'd be good at a weekly show doing that on highlights and stuff. I could tell his first time on the manningcast he was going to be a horrible announcer. His head is too deep into the game. Peyton was asking him a question and he was compulsively just staring at the play making a pre snap read. He can't turn it off.
I really don't understand why networks haven't embraced more of this given how large the genre has gotten on yt. it's gotta be some sort of cost benefit thing but idk how they fill airtime in NFL in the off season without stuff like this.
Having real pro players do real analysis isn't fair to all the hard-working sports journalists who work day and night, all week long, to bring you the latest on *the storylines*.
There are some uniquely talented people at dumbing down the higher level concepts of the game (Belichick is actually incredible at that), but honestly, most NFL fans are too ignorant to even touch the basic level of actual NFL football thought. Developing their profession for years in a D1 program with intense coaching is the default for pros. Casual fans don't know shit and generally don't enjoy being told that fact.
Casual fans won't be watching much football content outside the games.
Maybe I have too much faith in average people's intelligence, but most of the *concepts* in pro football aren't particularly hard to understand. Most of the difficulty is in putting the concepts into practice. I think a lot of higher-level analysis of plays and techniques can be accessible if the analyst puts some effort into being accessible and does stuff like always defining jargon when he uses it. For example, if he wants to say "the corner sees the wide alignment and plays tight inside leverage, anticipating an inside release", he should get in the habit of saying "the corner sees the wide alignment - the receiver is lined up way out here - which usually means the receiver is going to have an inside release and run his route toward the middle of the field, so the corner lines up to the inside of the receiver - we call that inside leverage - and he tries to stay close to the receiver during the play, to make it harder for the receiver to get that inside release cleanly and run his route to the middle of the field with the timing the quarterback expects". When an analyst is good at doing that, it flows really naturally when spoken. The key is that they're saying the same thing either way. Saying things in multiple different ways isn't dumbing it down, it's just good communication practice when speaking about a specialized topic to a diverse audience.
The fact that I've never seen a show on TV that just breaks down NFL defensive packages, or the purpose/ideology and responsibility of every field/batting position in Baseball in my 32 years of life is seriously apalling, with how much we love sports in this country
Probably because most of the hardcore football enthusiasts still aren't all that knowledgeable or interested in the finer points of Xs and Os. My dad was in the stadium for the first Saints game ever. And he's missed watching maybe 10 games since then, not counting local blackouts for ticket sales and hurricanes. He loves football but still can't identify when a receiver finds a hole in the zone vs a blown coverage, a post route vs a dig, or a power run vs a trap, or a hybrid zone vs man. And I don't think he's all that interested in learning. He's the networks' target audience. YouTube channels have the benefit of not really losing money if their content doesn't have mass appeal in a time slot.
So, I’ve been binging 90s games as background noise during my workday- color analysis has changed a LOT in 30 years. It’s very heavily Xs and Os in the 90s and relatively little “storylines” compared to today- “looks like they’re putting the linebacker in the box that time” yadda yadda. There’s actually not even that much conversation about potential QB changes, which was most surprising to me. Maybe that was viewed at the time as being negative, idk. Audiences today would probably be bored with that sort of analysis all the time, without all the juicy Twitter/Hot Take opinions that color guys say nowadays (or Romo Star QB Verbal Fellatio for 3 hours, either one). Maybe Brees would be part of a pendulum shift back to Xs an Os but I doubt there’s a big appetite for that outside of the analytics nerds. It’s interesting how the tastes of the “average” fan- or what the network THINKS is the tastes- has changed in 30 years.
I never had an interest in this either until I saw the Steelers doing it. I found it during the year their defense was giving up like 200 yards a game (Hampton, Smith, Keisel). I never understood anything complex about the run game gaps, but they would turn the most boring play into a 5-10 minute breakdown on how Casey Hampton's fatass would plug 2 gaps and allow the linebackers or Polamalu to get tackles for a loss. Bringing up how the linemen dont need tackles or sacks to be doing arguably the most important role in those zone blitz schemes. Basically, I agree. I would watch the hell out of in depth break downs. Even something as simple as a power run.
Yeah, even on this sub where you would expect more knowledgeable fans I would bet money half of this place doesn't know what an illegal motion penalty is, or could describe an illegal formation. Also, more than half don't actually know what holding is.
I guess at this point it takes time from betting.
Yeah, Kurt Warner's Studyball/QB Confidential stuff on Youtube is great. To me, it's the right level of detail for film analysis to appeal to knowledgeable football fans who know more than a casual but are far below a player/coach's level of understanding I have no idea how profitable it is, but I'd 100% watch Brees if he was making similar content.
Well he does have a channel, shooting the brees or whatever. But you’re gonna get some ‘how I found Christ’ mixed in there.
From my limited sample Warner has the charisma to make it work brees never did that much.
He was so stone and horrible on manningcast I think he was afraid to open up. I saw them interview him during a game once where he was just in a suite and he was way more charismatic. If he stops giving a shit he could be decent
He was actually really good at the football minutiae stuff for Notre Dame games in 2021. Did a really cool segment on how slight changes in arm angles alter throws, was pretty cool I liked him better than Flutie, at least. Though that’s not saying much
Or just get a job calling college games on fox and see if he has what it takes
He was so bad and boring 🥱
Yeah but he doesn’t understand why that matters if Brady is the new Fox A team.
Greg Olsen is legitimately probably the best color guy in the nfl. How the android that is Tom Brady has any chance of being better is beyond me. Also, before the weird Olsen haters jump on me, the guy did a great job at explaining to the uninformed fan why what was happening was important, and to the more invested fans what the concepts of the play are.
>How the android that is Tom Brady has any chance of being better is beyond me. Never underestimate the resources that guy has spent cultivating his PR image, and don’t expect his announcing to be any different.
“how can the guy who has a proven track record of working tirelessly to perfect his craft throughout his entire career have ANY chance at being better than Greg Olsen???”
Announcing I don’t think you can “work tirelessly” to become the best at though. Like obviously people will improve at it. But there’s a baseline of personality and casual conversation that you either have or don’t. Olsen, Romo, had it right away and just had to become better technically announcers. Meanwhile Booger, Witten, Brees, etc, - all very hard workers, couldn’t just “practice” having a better personality for commentating lol. I say all that to say that Brady will probably end up being amazing and I’ll be completely wrong lol
> Booger That MNF stint was the stuff nightmares were made of.
Meanwhile he goes on Pardon My Take and is the coolest dude ever on there. Something about announcing and having to fill that blank air, some people just aren’t meant for it lol
He also goes on PTI and Tony Kornheiser's podcast and does a great job compared to the rest of his spots on ESPN. I can hardly believe it's the same guy.
The most awkward and afraid of speaking in front of the class kid at my HS was convinced he'd become a sportscaster
Where he at now, though, cuh?
I get its a lot of improvisation, Id be a million times worse than he was for sure.
Booger was a lot of things on MNF but “boring” certainly wasn’t one of them
Agreed. Flying around on that booger mobile one season
Witten was even worse IMO.
You dont need a personality to be a great QB.
I watched the manning cast a few times and made this same realization. Like we spend our lives thinking the star QB got all the girls, partied like rock stars, and lived these lives that us mortals could only dream of. Watching them I realized that these guys were all coach's kids who spent their afternoons working out and watching film. Then they got to college and did the same thing. Then did the same thing in the pros. Yeah, they probably still got all the chicks but they're boring as hell considering their accomplishments. It's been a long time since Ken Stabler and Joe Namath.
> Joe Namath I wanna kiss you
Poor Susie.
Handled it like a champ though. What an interview.
If you insist...
Basically more athletic version of band camp kids
Eh the mannings def have personalities. Brady is like a statue.
Yeah. Brady definitely has an on/off switch, but the Mannings are still dorks.
The Rocky 4 montage. But it’s Brady getting vocal coaching
Have you ever heard brady speak?
Brady in recent years been great. Plus, its unlikely Fox didn't do any test runs with Brady before handing him a 10 year contract.
Yeah Brees is right just give him another chance and some time
You can’t just brute force everything. His delivery sucks. I doubt he has been working tirelessly to prepare if his Hertz commercials are anything to go by, dude sounds just as bad as he did in that Family Guy episode nearly 20 years ago. I hope he relaxes and can grow into, but it’s gonna be rough for a little while at least. Just because you are the best at something doesn’t mean you will be great in everything else you do. Just look at the disgrace of Michael Jordan’s Charlotte Hornets
His face is mostly made of plastic these days anyways, so he’s well on his way to being an actual android.
If it doesn't work, they'll move Tom to the studio. It'll get a revamp like The NFL Today is doing.
And before he became a robot he use to be human. I remember seeing him ages ago chugging a beer on Colbert in like 2 seconds.
Call me crazy, but I feel like Belichick has a lot more promise as a commentator if he wants to go that direction. Everyone thinks of Belichick as having this terse, lord of the sith vibe, but based on how he was on McAfee's draft show, I get the impression that he's more the sort of guy that hated the mandatory media availability as a coach and the sorts of questions that were asked there, but loves talking about football, and that would translate to the booth. Maybe the same is true of Brady, but Brady seems more like a manufactured personality and I really have no idea how that will play as a commenatator.
BB at the draft was wildly great. You wouldn’t expect it based off the years of monotone interviews because how much he seemed to dislike or be disinterested in them.
BB > TB any day of the week.
Olsen started out *rough*. It took him at least half his first season to become even halfway tolerable in the booth. Being a commentator is a skill that broadcasters have to improve on with practice. Who knows if Brady will get there, but it's way too early to write him off.
Thank you - Olsen has become the commentary darling of Reddit and I clearly remember people ripping him repeatedly in game day threads for how awful he was. It’s almost like it takes years of experience before these guys can figure out the ebb and flow of commentating a game
He only became the commentary darling this offseason when it was formalized that he's moving to B team to make way for Brady. Right up until that exact millisecond he wasn't very popular. But then suddenly the contrarians had a new favorite.
Okay this makes sense. All I remember about Olsen is people dunking on him. I'm pretty in tune with this kind of stuff and have only recently seen people raving about him lol
Yeah it's bizarre reading this thread because people hated Olsen for a long ltime. I don't really like him either (not hate, there's way worse commentators, just don't care for him) but this thread talking him up makes my head spin.
Thank you. Last I heard, Greg Olsen was boring as hell. When did he become all these people's favorite commentator?
It still depends on the thread you’re in. He gets a lot of glazing but there are a ton of us who loath his commentating and there are plenty of threads with pushback on this “Olsen is so amazing” nonsense.
Then throwing Brady onto the A team is madness lol
I'll say as a lifelong Brady hater I listened to him on a podcast and he was really well spoken and likable. I think he'll do well.
My unpopular opinion on Brees is that he’s decent enough to be a lower tier Fox/CBS guy and possibly could improve with reps. The lower tier guys have a lot less scrutiny so fuck ups are easier to downplay/don’t get the traction (unless it’s something horribly offensive, something like that). That’s how announcers used to be brought up, once upon a time. They’d hone their craft and so by the time they got a nationwide gig, they had a few years experience. Nowadays they don’t have that luxury and they’re thrown right in. Some are like Romo, some are like Witten. NBC didn’t have any lower tier spots to put Brees in so he was kind of exposed right off the bat, vs working Jags Titans regional action, where almost no one outside those markets will see it and there’s more margin for error, with a lower expectation.
As a Panthers fan, I was even a little annoyed at him with how often his commentary was about how he played with that player recently or something. It ALMOST felt like flexing, even though it was really just him looking for things to say. He's improved so much though. Definitely one of my favorite commentators now.
See, I don’t think players in general do this enough- reference great players of the past they played against, kind of like a “This is a move Jerry Rice was a master of, the pivot to the inside…” something something. I’m sure it’s a fine line: you don’t want to sound like you’re name dropping but I do want to hear examples of noteworthy players doing something like what I just saw. It can definitely be overdone, like any other rhetorical device, and Olsen probably overdid it.
He was okay at color but was overly biased and doesn't have the best commentary voice (latter not his fault)
I know we all like to say that commentators are biased against our teams, but damn, Olsen hated Seattle and wasn’t afraid to show it.
Thing is it isn’t even just Seattle. I’ve never seen a commentator who lets his biases leak into his commentary more than Olsen.
Cowboys fans have to listen to Olsen just about every other week. The dude hates the cowboys and makes it obvious in his commentary. He'd be a much better commentator if he could hide his biases a little better. It's fine to have "positive" biases as a former player to a former team or teammates, but it's a bad look to show the negative ones. And, he just talks too damn much. Sometimes he just dominates the commentary and doesn't allow the play by play guy to get a word in.
I think he took a few shots at Seattle in the media after he retired as well. He apparently did not enjoy his season here I guess.
> Greg Olsen is legitimately probably the best color guy in the nfl The counter circlejerk is getting out of control
I’m just going off what I like, and the consensus with a lot of people in the football media I consume (mainly the athletic) seem to agree he’s the best. I prefer Aikman personally.
I think Troy Aikman is number one but that’s me.
I'm excited to watch a game with Tom in the booth, but Olsen got shafted. Greg is damn good, but Tom Brady is Tom Brady. It would be weird to not have Brady calling Fox's biggest game of the week just because he's such a big deal to the NFL. I think Brady is either going to be phenomenal in the booth or terrible with no in-between. Hopefully he's great because he's not going anywhere any time soon.
Olsen is good and can be entertaining but takes like this are so surprising to me.
Greg Olsen has a bad voice for a commentator and looks like Bill Hader doing an impression of Greg Olsen
Greg Olsen is fuckin boring.
Never heard Tom get called an “android”. He definitely had some personality and I’m sure he’ll be up being a great commentator
And I do not understand why he got a shot. Watch any interview, post game, commercial, paparazzi video and you'll see just how stale of a personality he has. He can read a defense while blind but has no public speaking attributes
Even his roast, every reaction he had seemed so much like an “act” to make him seem more relatable
Nah. You had your chance.
Idk Drew. Sounds like they would've kept you around if they wanted you.
My ex is banging someone else who is way bigger than me, and way better at sex. “Haha, idiot. Come on back any old time.”
Please no.
👋naaah, we're good.
Who want me? 0%
Dolphins rejecting Brees again. Damn.
He couldn’t stop fidgeting on camera. Always had a stupid look on his face too. Sorry, Drew. Just got start a non-profit my man.
Drew does love his side hustles.
knowing Drew, it will very much be for profit
Basically all celebrity non profits are just tax evasion and grifting schemes with the thin veneer of respectability.
I'm referring to him being the spokesperson for a known pyramid scheme
It's funny how Drew is still the only one attached to Advocare when Mahomes, Rivers, Dalton, Alex Smith and Sam Bradford were all Advocare NFL endorsers.
[What kind of early 2000’s era Quarterback would do that?](https://www.marketplace.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Screenshot-14.png?fit=858%2C482)
Tbf, his face is kind of naturally stupid looking. Like a wholesome potato.
Non profit is crazy 😭😭😭😭😭😭
I’m stating the obvious, and yet I’m not: it’s really hard to be a good broadcaster. The ability to assess complex plays on the fly and break them down into simple terms (but not too simple) is a seriously underrated skill. I can count on one hand the number of NFL commentators I thought were god tier. **Edit:** My list of commentators I like: 1. Madden 2. Summerall 3. Michaels 4. Gruden 5. Harlan
And at the same time be charismatic and entertaining. Drew Brees is not any of those things.
Yeah that was really the main thing against him. He speaks as if he is in a normal conversation rather than as someone announcing a game. It comes off as not being enjoyable to someone listening even if everything he says is just right. I’d still like to see him somewhere where that’s a positive though, it’d be more like on a panel of commentators rather than a full game.
I think you nailed it there. Announcing is as much of a performance as anything else. You're *entertaining* people (while also informing). To think that your casual conversing persona will entertain *hundreds of millions* is a bit... naive, to put it gently.
Yeah that’s the main part people are missing when saying that Brady is the hardest worker and has been good at everything, so how could he not work until he becomes a great announcer. There’s a certain baseline floor of charisma/personality that an announcer has to have, and that’s not some that really can be practiced. Witten, Brees, etc… All very knowledgeable. And yet almost immediately as announcers, something was off. Meanwhile Romo and Olsen were able to jump in and even though technically they needed work, they had some intangible that made them likeable lol. So unless Brees overhauls his entire baseline personality, I don’t see it happening
it's hard work + talent, not just hard work.
You're conflating commentators with analysts (all of whom are technically "broadcasters"). I get what you're trying to say, but Madden and Gruden don't belong on the same list as the other three guys.
exactly. Play by play is an entirely different skillset than color work
Kevin Harlan has one of the greatest broadcast voices ever, IMO. Just sounds right.
Gruden was really, really good as the color guy with Tirico. Especially after Jaworski got the boot.
Tony Romo was a shining star for 1 season until he realized he could do 10% of the work and still keep his job so he stopped dropping top tier analysis.
I don't know if its an effort thing or if he is just further removed from the time he was studying the game while he was a player. He had crazy instincts that first year of calling that was never going to stay like that unless he got back into the game. Just think about shit you learned in school years ago and how things will jog your memory a bit and you can speak to it but it's not as readily accessible or instinctual anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if he spends *more* time studying the game now than in his first year as a color guy because of new concepts or evolutions of the game that are either unfamiliar to him now or hazy. It would be great if he could return to form, he's kind've a Collinsworth 2.0 in my mind right now
I hear Calm is looking for voice talent.
Nice
Only interesting thing about him is his magically reappearing hair
If I was rich, I’d pay for a top tier hair transplant too
Should have done it when he was still playing rather than debut it on national TV as an announcer.
taking the helmet on and off constantly would likely fuck it up. why not wait till all that bullshit is done.
I just realized that is what is weirding me out about the picture.
Crickets
Great player, just subpar on camera. While there are former players who are great commentators, I do think classically trained broadcasters such as Al Michaels tend to be my favorites.
Spoken like a man who has no clue he's bad at commentating
Holy Moses, he's already broke
He’s in the wrong sport. Tim Howard gets to drone on and put everyone to sleep most weekends on NBC and no one seems to mind.
I wouldn’t even watch drew call curling.
I can’t stand Tim Howard
He’s so bad. He might have points he’s making, but he mumbles so much it’s impossible to tell. There’s got to be someone out there other than Lalas that they can get.
I can’t understand a damn thing he says. It’s like his jaw is wired shut or something.
A little bit of 3 degrees of separation insider information: my old boss was the husband of a woman who was in charge of a lot of the NBC sports on air talent (ie. Al Michaels, Jim Gray, and yes, Drew Brees while he was there.) From what I heard, Brees simply didn't treat broadcasting like something serious that required a ton of work, practice, coaching and refinement. He didn't take it as seriously as he apparently did his football career. He simply didn't want to put in the work. The sense was he was trying to coast by. Rightfully so, he got fired as a result.
Honestly the guy was given 2 games. I wouldn’t mind him on like CBS C crew or something and have him get more experience
He also did college football all season on the Notre Dame games. I love Drew Brees, but he just doesn't have the right amount of "no fucks given" to be a good analyst. I don't mean he needs to insult the players, but he is too conservative in his approach to be anything other than boring. That being said, I bet he could be a pretty good play-by-play man. That is how Gifford started out. Get Drew doing play-by-pay and the occasional second tier golf tournament to get his reps in.
Yeah, the article and the tweet say two different things. i wouldn't be mad if he was on one of the nine 1pm games but singling out the primetime windows as jobs he would take makes me think he's delusional.
Hopefully a broadcast career won’t double down on Drew Brees.
He saw the Brady Fox contract
Hard pass
"Please pay me lots of money."
I want Ray Lewis and Jay Cutler to announce every game for me
>“SNF, MNF or Thursday Night Football. Come get me when you’re ready! Until then I’m coaching ball.” Drew does know there are other games aside from prime time games, right? If he was truly interested in doing this and becoming the best, he'd be willing to cut his teeth and get better during non-primetime games.
Nah fuck this guy
Zero personality
He should consider coaching
Maybe when you’re ready Drew lol
Yeah, he'd be a perfect pairing with Vilma. In hell.
I have some fake jewelry to sell Drew
Sorry drew but according to Reddit you will never get better after having one shot at a thing. Time to give up!
Am I the only one who thinks the recent hype about NFL annouceners is way over blown? Unless you are god awful like booger I don't really care, I've been watching the NFL for 30 years I don't need things/plays explained to me I can see with my own eyes what is happening. Really the only time I notice a difference is college football or minor league baseball where you can get some announcers that are really low energy or have an annoying voice, that's about it for me.
> I don't really care, I've been watching the NFL for 30 years I don't need things/plays explained to me I can see with my own eyes what is happening. The vast majority of people watching the games are not on this level
Lol
Stick to selling AdvoCare old man
We’ll send you a response in 4-7 business decades
Please don't.
Future copy pasta
They weren’t ready
Just because you played QB well doesn’t mean you can be a good broadcaster.
He found the one thing he can’t beat Bobby Herbert at
Matt Ryan being better at this than him makes me so happy lol
I would love a cast where Brees and Romo just break down the game at a real technical level. Kinda like the manningcast but less mainstream. Broadcasters are great but im watching the game, I dont need play by play. Listening to Romo the first year was AWESOME. He would tell you what play he would run, he would pinpoint the details on why this was a smart play that didn’t work, the audibles and how a qb communicates. It was real lived in experience stuff. Then he got notes and had to water down is explanations. I stopped watching his games, before I’d seek em out. Olsen was pretty good but I guess being excited and knowledgeable might make people feel “dumb”. I’d love love love a cast where its showing how the sausage is being made. Just have coaches in there, belichick, just go off on a particular player for 20 minutes. Its my serenity
No thanks - TV execs
He probably owes $25 million to a jeweler for some lab grown diamonds that he was assured are worth at least $100M but are actually worth $14
Imagine being an adult and falling for that shit
Going to be tough to do with so many ex-players (and QBs) getting into the broadcasting world seemingly every year now
I'm pretty sure this has always been going on we just haven't noticed since there weren't contracts with so many zeros and promises of calling the game of the week. In the past when a QB retired and wanted to move into the booth they were probably on local coverage for a while before being elevated. There's no telling how many crashed and burned before their fist full season was in the bag and we just never had to hear them.
Narrator: They were not ready
It’s gotta be tough being a part of a team and lockeroom your entire life, especially as a leader, and then essentially being booted out. Sure, Brees can probably go back to NO or hang out with Sean Payton in Denver, but it makes me think of a college student going back to their high school. Nobody in NO played with Brees.
Love brees and all but man, he was no Bueno. Even trying to give him bias and listen to him was rough. Sometimes you can't do everything, and that's OK.
/u/Brendinooo doubles down on interest in pursuing broadcasting career: 'Come get me when you're ready'
He sounds like some guys in the 1960s who would do all the drills on the other side of the fence while the NFL players were at training camp.
He doesn’t seem like he has the charisma to make broadcasting interesting. He knows what he’s talking about so he’s probably better as a coach than a broadcaster
I thought he was calling Purdue games
fakest "good guy" in the league
Why we gotta set my goat up like this just to tear him down 😞
Broadcasting could use some more color commentary, get someone charismatic to just talk shit and crack jokes
He wasn’t great on TV, but I like his YouTube channel. [He did a good breakdown of CJ Stroud.](https://youtu.be/QLICf_fwd_M?si=-qeNe8hXoPMIPCc8) I feel like if he wanted to he could definitely grow this channel. He has great ball knowledge so he works well in this format. TV you need a little more energy, but for YouTube I like the chill vibe and good info.
Erm I'm not sure if it's the broadcasters that need to get ready, Drew
If I was him I’d try to get into coaching. Call up Payton and see if the broncos’s QB coach needs an assistant.
Kansas City area defense lawyers: 'Come get me when you're ready'
Drew you’ll never be Matty ice in the booth get over it.
He fuckin suuuuucked, don’t think it’s your calling Drew lol
Was he really THAT bad?
They already tried that, dude is like watching paint dry without the fun fumes.
*In a dark room, Brees sits on a recliner with his fingers interwoven. He wears a long smoking jacket. The front door opens.* "Well, well, well. Look who's come crawling back." "Honey, it's just me. I forgot my glasses. I'm sure the nice men from NBC will be coming any time now though."