Drew Brees Still Thinks He Could Star in an NFL Booth

Drew Brees wants another crack at NFL broadcasting. 

But in the booth this time, he said in an interview with Front Office Sports Today.

Brees joined NBC immediately upon retiring in 2020 and mostly worked college games and the network’s Sunday studio show. He was looked at as a possible heir apparent to color analyst Cris Collinsworth, but left after just one season. Brees wanted to call games instead of being a studio analyst, although he badly struggled in a rare NFL opportunity when he called a playoff game on Peacock. After he left NBC, other outlets passed on the chance to hire him. 

“I think I could be the absolute best at it, if given the opportunity,” Brees said on Friday’s episode of FOS Today. “I valued my time at NBC so much, for that year after I played, I spent most of that time in-studio on Sunday Night Football, having to work with some incredible people. But I didn’t really get the chance to broadcast NFL games. And that’s what I feel like I’m most qualified to do. That’s what I feel like I’m most passionate about. And certainly where my knowledge base lies, right? Telling the story of the game, getting you inside the huddle, getting you inside the quarterback’s head, letting you know how we’re attacking this defense. That to me is something I’d love to do down the road when the time is right.”

Brees’s comments come days before Tom Brady is set to make his debut as an NFL analyst. Brees praised Brady’s gap-year approach.

“I think he’s done it the right way,” Brees said. “He sat out a year. I think he took time to just kind of relax and reflect a little bit and also prepare. At the end of the day, there’s a knowledge base that Tom Brady has that very few people have, right? And there’s some insight that I think there’ll be a lot of golden nuggets with each and every one of those broadcasts.”

You can listen to the entire interview with Brees on FOS Today here.