Tom Brady is preparing for his Super Bowl debut in the broadcast booth.
The Fox Sports color commentator competed for the Vince Lombardi Trophy 10 times as a player, winning seven rings.
That pedigree saw the network shell out $375 million to tie him down for a decade.
He made his debut as an analyst on the call for the Dallas Cowboys at the Cleveland Browns in Week 1.
Fans were not impressed, calling his performance ‘awkward’.
Two-time Pro Bowl tight end Kyle Rudolph also made the move from the field to the booth and knows all about the steep learning curve.
He caught Brady’s historic last regular-season touchdown after joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for the 2022 season and admits he was surprised at his former teammate’s early struggles.
“I think it shocked me because Tom is one of those guys that’s just good at everything,” he exclusively told talkSPORT in New Orleans.
“It’s like the guy that you love to hate. You’re like, ‘Man, this dude’s good-looking. He’s the greatest quarterback that ever played the game. He’s a good golfer. He’s a great dude. He’s nice to everyone.’
“But also, you could tell he was nervous. I think having called games myself, when you’re a guy like Tom that has so much knowledge of the game, that has so many good stories to tell, so many things that fans are just dying to hear, but you only have such a small amount of time to get it all.
“And for me personally, when I was preparing for games, I felt like once the broadcast happened, I went back and I’m like, I had so much stuff that I prepared and I wanted to get into the broadcast. It’s a skill that you have to learn.”
Rudolph has worked for Peacock and Fox Sports Radio since retiring in 2023 after 12 years in the NFL — nine of which were with the Minnesota Vikings.
He thinks Brady is starting to hone his craft and enjoys tuning in but admits the GOAT’s minority ownership of the Las Vegas Raiders could prove a distraction.
“I did think he got better as the year went on,” he added. “You could tell he got more comfortable, the balance of analyzing football, but also telling the stories that we all want to hear. Everyone wants to hear Tom Brady‘s story.
“You think he was in NFL locker room for 23 years. Like the amount of football that he saw, the amount of players that he played with, the amount of stories that he has.
“I remember we’d be preparing for games and Tom would be like, ‘Oh yeah, this defensive coordinator.’ He’d have like a full notebook on just the coordinator.
“It’s like, ‘Oh, he likes to do this, he likes to do that.’ Noone knows football better than Tom. But that doesn’t mean that you can just get all that into the broadcast. It’s hard. You’ve got to find your time to interject with an anecdotal note, or a story.
“Tom will just continue to get better if he wants to keep doing it. Who knows? Obviously, as the owner of the Raiders, things could change.
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“Tom’s great. Again, he’s one of those guys that’s just good at everything. And yet, I still found myself, I love tuning in, listening to him, listening to his stories, listening to him analyze the game, just like he did when he was playing.”
Troy Aikman called six Super Bowls for Fox and shared some words of wisdom.
“For anyone who’s played in a Super Bowl, to say that, ‘Well, yeah, it’s just like any other game’? They’ve not played in it because it’s not,” he told ‘SI Media With Jimmy Traina’.
“As soon as you win the championship game, you know that that Super Bowl is unlike any other game you will every play in and the same is true as a broadcaster. The entire day is different. When you first do your hit on the pregame, or even right before you go on air, the timing is very different. The halftime is very different. Everything is.
“I do think, you know, when you call a preseason game, it’s a different broadcast than when you call a regular season game. When you call a postseason game, it’s different than a regular season game.
“And, when you call a Super Bowl, it’s different than any other game you would call as well as far as what you’re talking about. I think you’ve got to be aware of that as well.”
As the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs prepare for the greatest test in football, Brady will look to perform once again in front of millions on the world stage.
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