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NEW ORLEANS — Tom Brady is learning how to speak in sound bites for TV.
On Friday, he summed up the controversy over whether NFL referees favor the Chiefs with two letters: “BS.”
While appearing on Fox & Friends, Fox Sports’ No. 1 NFL game analyst was asked whether he was concerned about the zebras favoring the Chiefs over the Eagles in Super Bowl LIX. Brady let loose in a way he rarely has in his first season in the broadcast booth.
“I think it’s just all BS. It’s just a bunch of noise,” said Brady, who will call his first Super Bowl telecast Sunday night with play-by-play partner Kevin Burkhardt. “And these refs have very challenging jobs to do. I’m very happy Twitter didn’t exist during the Tuck Rule game in 2001,” he said, referring to the notorious call that paved the way for his first ring. “Let me say that. I would have been on the wrong end of a lot of those.”
Brady’s stance is not a surprise. Due to his minority ownership in the Raiders, the seven-time Super Bowl winner has been operating under the so-called “Brady Rules,” where he’s restricted from criticizing officials. He also can’t attend practices, enter other team’s facilities, or participate in pregame production meetings with teams or players.
The latter restrictions are slightly loosened for Sunday’s game, and Brady has taped two interviews with Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes this season, including one in the buildup to the Super Bowl.
Brady, who signed a monster, 10-year, $375 million deal with Fox, is singing from the same hymn book as the NFL’s other power players. Everybody from commissioner Roger Goodell to Fox officiating analyst Mike Pereira has ripped the idea that refs are in the tank for Kansas City.
Goodell dismissed the claim as a “ridiculous theory” on Monday during his state of the league address. He added Brady has been “incredibly cooperative” about balancing his dual responsibilities. “He calls frequently about it and says, ‘Am I doing O.K.?’” said Goodell. And Fox’s Pereira termed the claims a “myth” during Fox’s media day Thursday, which Brady skipped.
But there are some nuances to the so-called Brady Rules in practice. When Brady criticized an unnecessary roughness call during a Packers-Lions telecast in November, many fans waited for the hammer to come from the league office. Instead, the NFL said it had “no issue” with his criticism. In fact, league spokesman Brian McCarthy went out of his way to clarify the rules. “The concern would be if Tom was egregiously critical of officiating or called into question the integrity of an official or the crew,” said McCarthy in a statement. “That did not occur in this instance.” Got it? The standard now is: “Egregiously critical.”
And the restrictions on talking to players are hard to enforce.
When Brady strolls the field before games, he’s so famous that players and coaches seek him out, according to my sources. What is the NFL going to do? Have a security guard tape their conversations? As former Super Bowl broadcaster Bonnie Bernstein pointed out to me, Brady could also call anybody he wants. There isn’t a player or coach in the league who wouldn’t take the call.
The Brady Rules “don’t preclude him from picking up the phone and calling any one of these guys. I think that’s O.K.,” Bernstein told me. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s off-lining with players and coaches with whom he has relationships.”
The bottom line: The Brady Rules sound good on paper. But in reality, they have little teeth. The NFL wants its winningest player calling games, and Brady keeps saying he wants to complete his lucrative 10-year Fox deal—if not sign up for more. But the rubber will hit the road during Fox’s telecast Sunday night. If the refs throw key penalty flags that favor Mahomes and the Chiefs, it will be up to Brady to call BS on them, not their skeptics. Will he? I think so. But we’ll find out during the most-watched TV show of the year Sunday night.
