ESPN star passionately defends Tom Brady over broadcasting debut

Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and legendary coach-turned-media-star Bill Belichick are among noteworthy members of the NFL community who have defended Tom Brady after pockets of fans and analysts criticized Brady for how he performed during his official regular-season announcing debut this past Sunday.

During the latest edition of "The Elle Duncan Show," the well-known ESPN personality fired back at those who ripped Brady's call of the Dallas Cowboys' 33-17 blowout win at the Cleveland Browns.

"People in broadcasting love these moments because it’s a big [expletive] you to those of you that think that what we do is that easy," Duncan explained, as shared by Sam Neumann of Awful Announcing. "It is a reminder, guys, broadcasting’s not that easy. Calling games, calling color for games — not easy. We make it look easy. We make it look so easy that you, 'Joe Blow,' at home think you can do it. It’s not that easy."

Specifically, media insiders and fans mentioned that Brady sounded nervous and somewhat stiff up through halftime of the Week 1 game at Cleveland's Huntington Bank Field. Duncan suggested that Brady's desire to become a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders may have impacted what he did and/or didn't say over the weekend.

For a piece published in late August, ESPN's Seth Wickersham reported that Brady "would be prohibited from publicly criticizing game officials and other clubs" if the seven-time Super Bowl champion eventually becomes a limited partner with the Raiders.

"On top of the fact that it’s not that easy because of his link to the Raiders and trying to buy the Raiders, there’s like a laundry list of things that Tom Brady isn’t even allowed to say," Duncan continued. "So, on top of the fact that you’re doing something you’ve never done before, you’re doing it knowing that they gave you [$375M over 10 years] to do it. You’re doing it knowing that they pulled Greg Olsen off of it to fill you in, something that everyone was upset about because this man just won an Emmy for how good he is."

Brady's deal coupled with his star power will prevent Fox from pulling the plug on this experiment at least through the network's coverage of Super Bowl LIX in February 2025 unless he sounds completely lost by that Sunday afternoon.

The fact that he grew more comfortable throughout the second half of the Cowboys-Browns contest indicates he'll have a better overall day in the booth when he calls this Sunday's matchup between Dallas and the New Orleans Saints.

In short, Brady isn't going anywhere anytime soon regardless of what fans posting on social media have to say about his announcing skills.