Tom Brady's Former Teammate Shares Totally Fair Assessment Of His First Season In Broadcasting Booth

Just like every person who has ever stepped foot in a sports broadcasting booth, Tom Brady drew mixed reviews during his first NFL season as FOX's lead color commentator. Just as it was during his early playing days on the field, there is room for improvement for Brady when it comes to calling games, and one of his former teammates thinks that improvement will be noticeable sooner rather than later.

Many, specifically folks who have exactly zero experience playing in the NFL or in the media world, assume that since Brady was the elite of the elite on the gridiron, then talking about the game would come easy for the seven-time Super Bowl champion.

Former NFL cornerback Logan Ryan, who spent four seasons playing alongside Brady, would like to put an end to that narrative.

"Yeah, the two don’t have to coincide. What you need to do on TV isn’t exactly what you need to be great at football," Ryan told Front Office Sports. "You have to be able to process in football and understand to have success. On TV, that is similar, but you gotta get it out much quicker and you gotta be entertaining, and you can’t… there’s a lot of rules to it."

This then led Ryan to make an eye-opening statement about Brady taking his talents to the booth, as he pointed no other all-time greats, especially of the more modern era, are doing what TB12 is doing.

"What Tom is doing, it’s never been done, having the GOAT of their sport commentate game to game," Ryan continued. "I don’t see Tiger Woods commentating The Masters. I don’t see Wayne Gretzky commentating hockey games week in and week out. I never saw Michael Jordan commentating 82 basketball games. We’ve never seen the greatest do that. We’ve seen guys do a halftime hit. You know, we might see Shaq and Chuck and those guys at halftime, but calling the games is a big leap because you’re up for so much scrutiny. You’re going to make a mistake in three hours of people listening to your voice."

All totally fair points.

Tom Brady is only going to improve in the broadcast booth according to former teammate Logan Ryan. Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images

Woods jumps on golf broadcasts on rare occasions to speak for 10 minutes or so, Gretzky does pre and post-game NHL work with TNT nowadays, and Barkley and O'Neal do the same on the NBA side.

The exceptions would be Reggie Miller and Dwyane Wade calling basketball games on a traditional play-by-play scale, but neither would be considered the ‘GOAT’ of the NBA. Peyton and Eli Manning have their own NFL gig with ESPN, but it's not anything close to Brady's duties as FOX's lead color commentator week in and week out.

As for what Ryan expects to see out of Brady for the upcoming NFL season and those beyond, work and improvement were the words he used.

"I thought he got better throughout the year," Ryan said of Brady. "I know everybody was blown away by his work ethic and just his personality. He’s a really good dude. So I think he got better. I enjoyed him doing the Super Bowl. And if I know Tom, I know he’s going to put the work in to improve."