Former teammate, media icon defend Tom Brady over announcing debut

Retired tight end and current Fox personality Rob Gronkowski acknowledged this week that Tom Brady "definitely" sounded like a rookie announcer while making his broadcasting debut last Sunday.

Like Gronkowski, former wide receiver Julian Edelman played alongside Brady with the New England Patriots long before Edelman embraced multiple media opportunities. During a recent appearance on "The Rich Eisen Show," Edelman praised Brady for how the seven-time Super Bowl champion sounded while calling the Week 1 game between the Dallas Cowboys and Cleveland Browns.

"Yeah, I think he did good," Edelman said about Brady, as shared by Reice Shipley of Awful Announcing. "You know, it’s his first time on the camera. It brings me back to the first time I got on camera for 'Inside the NFL.' When that red light turns on, you do all that preparation and it just changes. You gotta go and do it."

Numerous stories published this summer touched upon how Brady began preparing for his role as Fox's new lead in-game analyst last year. He and play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt reportedly "called a full season’s worth of practice games" leading up to last weekend , but those sessions didn't prevent Brady from sounding a bit nervous throughout his official debut.

"Like Tom in anything he does," Edelman continued, "having that one rep is gonna make him better for the next one. I know he’s gonna be at home going over all the games and going over his game and self-scouting to see what he can do better. But I think it was a great starting point for Tom."

Meanwhile, Awful Announcing's Sam Neumann noted that broadcasting legend Jim Nantz said during an appearance on the "What the Football with Suzy Shuster and Amy Trask" podcast he believes "Brady will be very good at this" and shouldn't be harshly judged "after one game" in the booth.

"I’ve talked to Tom a lot leading into this season," Nantz explained, "and he has called on many broadcasters to get their insights and what it’s like in the booth, how to prepare, how fast the game moves. I know he’s going to be really good at this — I don’t have any doubt."

Many noteworthy media personalities spent portions of this week defending Brady and reminding fans that broadcasting is "not that easy." It remains to be seen if such takes will alter expectations viewers have for Brady ahead of his call of this Sunday's matchup between the Cowboys and New Orleans Saints.