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Tom Brady may have apologized for saying “oh, shit” in the Fox broadcast booth when Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels went down with an elbow injury last Sunday, but longtime teammate Rob Gronkowski told Front Office Sports he “loved” Brady’s reaction.
“It’s a natural reaction, and that’s what fans want,” Gronkowski told FOS’s Baker Machado on Thursday. “I’d rather have him do that than be fabricated. Fans don’t want fabrication. They want real, they want natural, and that was real and natural in the moment.”
Brady is in his third season calling games for Fox alongside play-by-play partner Kevin Burkhardt after signing a 10-year, $375 million contract for the network in 2022, the most lucrative contract in sports television history.
Late in the first half of Sunday’s “America’s Game of the Week” between the Commanders and Cowboys, Daniels awkwardly twisted his elbow while placing it on the turf. When shown a replay of the incident, Brady exclaimed, “Oh shit,” before quickly interjecting, “Excuse me, was not expecting to see that.”
Gronkowski said that when he saw the incident he said, “Oh nasty,” but felt that Brady’s instinctive reaction was indicative of his growing comfort in the booth.
“I’d say he holds back a little, because when he was playing, you were allowed to be intense and use those words,” Gronkowski said. “In the booth, you’ve got to be more appropriate, more buttoned up. So it was good to see him let loose, and it shows how comfortable he is now.”
Brady apologized for his profanity in a Fox Sports video on Thursday, saying, “I’m actually kind of embarrassed. There’s a lot of grandmas at home that probably aren’t very happy with my mouth on Fox. I’m gonna fix that. Sorry. I apologize.”
Gronkowski added that he wasn’t surprised by Brady’s improvement as a commentator from when he first started, given the mentality that led him to win an NFL-record seven Super Bowls.
“He wasn’t at this level [at the start], but that makes sense because he’d never done it before,” Gronkowski said. “Knowing him, his personality, and who he is, I knew he’d get to this level. It’s actually happened sooner than I thought.”
Brady and Gronkowski played together for 11 seasons, nine on the Patriots and two on the Buccaneers. The duo connected on 105 touchdown passes throughout their careers, including a league record 15 in the postseason.
Gronkowski announced his retirement after the 2018 NFL season, but came back after Brady signed with the Buccaneers in 2020 and caught two touchdown passes in Super Bowl LV to secure Brady a seventh ring and himself a fourth.
“He’s killing it, he really is,” Gronkowski said. “I knew he’d start killing it sooner rather than later.”
