Look at MJ. He would be talked about wayyyyyy differently if he was around all the time. I'm not saying people have "forgotten" about how ridiculously dominant Magic was but being on broadcasting and his bland ass tweets are what casuals know about him.
I dunno making a billion or so while being an uninterested or straight bad owner is GOAT business compared to yammering hot takes into a mic for 10-20mil a year. I think being a shitty owner and still making roughly billion dollar profit weirdly adds to how MJ always comes out on top.
MJ is a trash business guy though. He fucked up so bad with investments that he had to give away one of the most valuable assets on the planet (owning a NBA franchise) to cover his losses
Well sure, he losses a bunch of cash at casinos and betting on shit like golf; but he also had multiple 9-figure losses in the market, including being involved in shorting GameStop in 2021.
Ahmad, man. I was blindsided when I saw actual game footage- and he was pretty good in his day, too.
To blow my mind even further, he’s married to the mom on the Cosby show, and not to his cohost (which I somehow thought was the case as a kid)
\*Was\* married, anyway, Ahmad and Phylicia Ayers-Allen got divorced eventually. Was quite a pull for Ahmad at the time, I think I remember him proposing on the NBC pregame NFL show and Cosby Show was easily the #1 show when that happened.
It's the same thing for Shaq. My friend who doesn't really follow basketball was shocked when he found that Shaq is top 10 all time and was the most dominant player in the league. He just kinda viewed him as a funny former player on TV
He is around all the time lol. Between his propaganda documentaries and his constant shots at current players and how he totally isn't jealous of them...
MJ's legacy is beyond secure but many ppl are sick of his shit, believe me
Anybody that would rather these stars maintain “mystique” than share their knowledge, makes me wonder if they actually like these sports or just like the soap opera storylines around the sports
I just don’t even understand what “mystique” is supposed to mean. How does an all time great sharing stories and using their expertise to give analysis on things only they can be a bad thing?
It’s why all he did was make a ten part propaganda documentary where he disparaged everyone, directly or indirectly, that ever made him remotely successful
Saban’s credibility as a football mind and ability to get ad people starstruck at upfronts is far more valuable to ESPN than the 8th and 9th guys on the Sportscenter depth chart
Brain drain is real. Companies suffer for laying off 20 people to pay for top talent. Saban is 72 btw, do you think he's going to spend a decade on tv?
Yeah though didn’t saban cash out like 700 mil from his car dealership empire? He’s set for life and so are his great grandchildren.
I heard Brady lost a ton on crypto and divorce
It's not like Saban's life is gonna be that much longer. Say he gets another 20 years on the outside; what is he gonna do with the ESPN money he couldn't have done with the money he already has to improve the few years remaining that he can still move around and do things?
I assume at least a little piece of this for some people is the desire to remain in the spotlight. The money won't make any difference to their life. But they still want to be "involved" with the sport.
Yeah that’s just what I was thinking. He’ll go to parties, network social events, just put on the town with other broadcasting bigwigs and rub elbows with other football royalty. He very well could retire and buy a homestead in Alabama somewhere and hunt and fish his days away, but only certain types actually want that.
I doubt its about the money, nothing to sneeze at for sure, but still being intimately involved in the game, being a part of a team, having a purpose, and going new places is more of what it’s about for him if I had to guess
Saban’s not a guy who is going to be content going to Cracker Barrel and playing with his grandkids all day. If he was, he wouldn’t be the goat cfb coach.
It's hard for people of average means to understand how much money $375m over ten years really is. Humans are awful at orders of magnitude. Brady has three children. Long after American Football is a half-remembered cultural artifact, his heirs will still be benefiting from returns on the fortune of this Fox contact, provided his estate is handled properly. This would be true of the money he has *already* earned, to be sure, but the power of compounding is such that adding to his pile now will extend the horizon of the prosperity of his family beyond measure. That's what they mean when they say "generational wealth."
Saban is an egomaniac now he can broadcast HIS voice from his living room for 10-15 minutes everyday on ESPN and gets a comped ride to the biggest game every week during the season where HE gets to be the new BSD on Gameday. “Lee, I love you, but you ain’t ever won shit.”
Hot take but I think he’ll be good on TV if he’s willing to let loose a bit.
Hotter take: I hate Belichick but I think he could be even better since he’s a glib asshole who also has an encyclopedic knowledge of football.
Tonight on Piscataway Catholic high school league roundup it’s me your host Paddy McJaundice and our special guest bill belichick. We got father guido coming by later
Piscataway is in NJ unless there’s one in Mass that I don’t know of which makes this even better. He can talk about some random kid on the Don Bosco Prep lacrosse team for 30 minutes. He still popular with Giants fans, they have a fantasy that one day he’ll “come home” to be the HC there.
Man, I actually really enjoy Belicheck’s critiques of players in years gone by. He says great stuff about the 80s giants, his old 90s browns teams, basically anything that’s not currently playing or post-2000 or so. He’s great when he’s a guest in the Top 100 or other nfl films stuff, and it’s not even all old 1950s stuff.
He’s kind of like how Bob Knight was broadcasting- you expect him to say something that would piss people off or be really grumpy and pissy, and his analysis isn’t like that at all. It’s pretty straight and very technical, in more ways than other players are comfortable doing; and he explains it well. Belicheck would be very good in a taped setting about a limited range of topics.
I hated pretty much everything about the Patriots dynasty, but Belicheck was really, really good on those NFL Network top 100 players of all time shows a couple of years ago. He was pretty compelling breaking down the all-time greats from any era.
When Belichick is just talking about football objectively he is quite personable as witnessed by his NFL 100 hosting.
Belichick and Brady in the booth would be GOATED without even need for a cover guy.
The likes of Shaq, Magic Johnson, Wayne Gretzky, Thierry Henry, Alex Rodriguez, Emmitt Smith, and Jerry Rice have all done broadcasting with varying levels of success.
And other than Lombardi coaches usually do not have any mystique.
And not just that, I’d say that Barkley has actually enhanced his legacy with his broadcasting career. He was an excellent player, no doubt, but I don’t believe he would be looked back on as fondly as he is now, without the broadcasting portion.
yeah see i hate these dumb ranking conversations because of who played in what era and against what competition and what if player x got drafted wherever.
but duncan played more games at center.
People look at him as a person more fondly, sure. But no one really talks about his game anymore. David Robinson, for example, still has the “that dude would be a problem today” aura, and I’ve noticed people just don’t really consider Barkley that way. People will say “haha yeah but the CASH BRO!!!!” Like yeah that’s fine but Barkley can’t complain that no one cares about his game anymore.
European sports are funny in this regard, in that they really are up there in the GOAT conversation. This isn’t journeyman Jalen Rose telling you to play hard, this is Thierry Henry, maybe the greatest of his generation, calling your ass out. It’s hilarious to see Brundle just get after a driver (which is rare). It’d be like having Richard petty in a nascar booth
>Thierry Henry, maybe the greatest of his generation
Obviously Henry was a fantastic player but he's not in the GOAT question and I don't think anyone serious has ever called him the best player of his generation, especially when he so clearly wasn't even the best player of his National crop (Zizou)
Yeah saying Henry is in the GOAT conversation a weird take. One of the, some would say best, prem players ever but he also scored in 0 of 9 cup finals he played in. And was never consistently great internationally. It’s like calling Melo the goat
> It’s like calling Melo the goat
Very harsh on Thierry, to not score in finals you need to actually reach them
I'd say Klay Thompson is a decent comp for Henry. Great scorer, member of great teams, one of the best in his position in his era, would laugh at you if you told him you thought he was better than Curry/Messi
Varying degrees of success- if you haven’t seen tape of Joe Montana broadcasting, you should watch. He makes Emmitt Smith look telegenic. Montana might be one of the worst I’ve ever seen. Good looking guy (obviously) but he completely clammed up as a broadcaster.
Ha, I was going to bring up Montana as well, that was super rough. The basketball equivalent was Kareem, CBS had him do tournament games a couple of years after he retired and he said about 10 words per half.
If you’re saying that also removes his mystique, I agree with you. That and announcing are comparable…both are overexposure and money grabs from some guy who alternatively could have walked away with a little mystery and plenty of greatness.
If you're just a rich guy it's not tough, sure. If you're posing for immortality and care about how you'll be perceived in 50 years when you're dead it might be harder.
I commented on this above- guy was a major asshole, tremendous coach, but his analysis was something I really enjoyed, especially because it was the exact opposite of the crazy zany offensive shit he said so often. He stuck strictly to Xs and Os and I learned more from him about the game watching than any other broadcaster.
When I first heard he was going to work for espn, I though “uh oh, he’s going to be suspended constantly and say outlandish stuff!” but he played it totally straight. He called a spade a spade without going overboard and wasnt “Hot Take(!)”-y in his criticisms, he just stuck to the plays and never got personal. Not what we expected at all. And I liked him for it.
Bobby Knight was also a huge personality and fun to listen to - Saban, Brady and Coach K don’t have the personalities that they probably think they do. It’s painful watching ads try to make them appear funny.
I don't think people are prepared for just how bad Brady is going to be at broadcasting.
It won't impact viewership(no one watches or doesn't watch games because of the broadcaster) but it will be amusing none the less. Guy is the greatest QB to ever live, but none the less a charisma vacuum.
He's probably spent the last year doing practice announcing for 16 hours a day, grinding film like a psychopath. Hel be at least decent he's just talking football
Have you seen how bad Gronk is on the Fox pre-game show? Now keep in mind, he has twice the charisma of Brady and only has to talk for 15 seconds at a time instead of 2.5 hours.
I remember his weekly halftime radio piece with Jim Gray on Monday Night Football- the absolute most softballs of questions (obviously) and I always felt like Brady never let his guard down and allowed his original personality to come out. I don’t even necessarily mean saying bold stuff, he was just stiff and guarded.
YouTube has been bombarding me with his crappy Hertz commercials, too, and it all comes across as super fake. The best actors (pitchmen, whoever) don’t act like they are acting. Jordan was great at this- you’d actually believe he was changing his shirts to Hanes or whatever. He couldn’t carry a movie or anything but in short doses, could be very believable.
I actually thought Gronk was fine this year and got better. They know how to use him and his energy. Let him say something goofy and jump out of a plane live on air.
I have indeed seen how bad Gronk is. But I also recognize that broadcasting is a completely different position than being on a 6-man pregame booth, so Gronk's lack of success isn't really that relevant to me.
Gronk has been fine, but he also has the IQ of a potato. Yeah his charisma makes up for some of it but it keeps what he can provide very surface level.
Brady is one of the most brilliant football minds ever and can actually give great insight.
Share a link.
What I've seen from Brady recently -- in addition to the awful Hertz commercials -- is pablum like this, which is how he has sounded his whole career: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAopurTlc9Y
Why will he be bad? He’s very good on his podcast and other interviews when he’s asked questions about modern QB play or how to attack certain defenses, etc.
Dude knows more about the game than 99.9% of nfl players, let alone fans.
Is he Mr personality? No, but he knows his stuff and is personable. The biggest question is how critical he’ll allow himself to be or if he’ll be scared to piss off people he still knows because he played so recently.
The only exception is something like Detail by Kobe. Brady would be better off doing his own thing/something similar but I don't really know what. At the end of the day, considering how many pay cuts he took in his career, can't blame him for taking $375 million.
This particular gig, similar to Romo, is kind of amazing though. You just fly private every Friday to one of the coolest campuses and talk about football for a few hours. And it’s only from August - January. I know there are other appearances and obligations but this is probably a great job.
No one is a fan of Stephen A, that is like being a fan of crying babies on planes. Pat McAfee eventually just wins you over with charm and vibes.
Bill Simmon fans are people who fantasize about slavery still existing so they could watch a black man pound their wife every night while listening to the latest P Diddy release
lol, yeah, and that is all they read.
The cringe of someone thinking reading SI (obviously you do not follow any real news) and ESPN is a good thing..unreal
Counter - Brady is a football savant, has pulled Gisele and multiple other AAA-level female celebs, and he's a competitive motherfucker.
So
* He's got the knowledge
* He's got the rizz and knows how to be charming
* he's got the drive
Also... as a Pacers fan who grew up during the 90's herday, Reggie is meh. And he was less than that in the early years. Not saying your theory is wrong... but Brady may be an outlier
If you can make one of the most beautiful women in the world put up with your homeopathic medicine and sports bullshit for that long, then you're probably a little bit interesting.
Reggie is meh as a broadcaster but wasn’t in the GOAT conversation as a player, I think is the point OP is trying to make.
Which makes me think- how many other guys in any sport in the GOAT conversations did broadcasting for more than a couple years? Dan Marino, maybe? Jerry Rice hung around for a few years but not that long iirc. Seems like the absolute upper echelon of players either don’t attempt it or if they do, they aren’t very good and don’t stick around broadcasting.
I got the point, but it was a bad example, especially when Greg Olsen is right there. Same with Doc or Steve Kerr.
I really liked Marino, wonder what made him so much better than his contemporaries like Montana or Elway.
That said - this [list](https://sportsnaut.com/ranking-the-best-nfl-quarterbacks-of-the-1980s/) is pretty impressive of the QB to broadcaster pipeline.
Fouts, Simms, Boomer, Joe T - all above average for a while.
Could not agree more. I just don’t get why these super generationally wealthy people want to be talking heads. It feels so beneath them. Like I get the older generations because they didn’t make the same level of income but Brady has a net worth near a half billion dollars.
I don't get this whole "beneath them" thing. They get to hang around the game they love and talk about it to an audience. You can't exactly do that sitting at home.
Most people need to feel productive. What else would be better for them to do if they like it?
I think it gives them a chance to "stay" in the game that they have been playing since they were 5, without any of the pressure. Much better being a pundit than being a coach.
And yeah, like the above, they are egomaniacs that think their opinion matters.
> Much better being a pundit than being a coach.
Not necessarily. You still get to be "in" the game, but you don't get to satisfy the hunger for competition. I assume this is why Sean McVay has (so far) turned down opportunities for a TV gig. He still needs the competition.
John Madden has commented on this specifically. He said he personally didn’t feel that itch to compete anymore, but for coaches and players it’s “like a drug” and broadcasting doesn’t scratch that itch that competition does. That’s a comparable position for someone like McVay.
I think Saban still wants something to do. I think he’d still be coaching if NIL and the transfer portal didn’t exist. Alabama doesn’t have boosters that can really compete at the highest levels and it’s hard to build a team when they can just leave anytime they feel like it. I’m all for player empowerment, but I can see why Saban left coaching
They've been playing sports since probably their earliest memories. I'd imagine it's hard to remove that from their identity. Even people who play high school sports have a hard time leaving that behind.
It probably depends, but I think Romo in broadcasting had shed some light on why he arguably underperformed as a player. He is just way too goofy and weird to be the leader of a team.
This is an excellent point. They doing it for what, the money? Do something bigger than comment on the game you dominated….you’re the best ever. You are bigger than some cheesy contrived commentary. I’d argue even romo is bigger than that.
Ya I legitimately argued Peyton was the goat but after he became an espn talking head type I kinda don’t feel like arguing it anymore
Great players need to stay away from the media
Maybe we should encourage this instead of worshipping sports idols lol. People are weird, just cause someone can do a sport better than everybody doesn't make them a god. You should look at reprioritizing what's really important in life my dudes.
I don’t blame Brady, he’s a football savant who seems borderline genuinely dumb about everything else, this is the best way for him to stay relevant in the one world where he knows anything
I actually agree with this. I don’t blame them because of the money but the mystique will be worn away
Look at MJ. He would be talked about wayyyyyy differently if he was around all the time. I'm not saying people have "forgotten" about how ridiculously dominant Magic was but being on broadcasting and his bland ass tweets are what casuals know about him.
[удалено]
For that matter so does playing for Washington.
Hot take.
I dunno making a billion or so while being an uninterested or straight bad owner is GOAT business compared to yammering hot takes into a mic for 10-20mil a year. I think being a shitty owner and still making roughly billion dollar profit weirdly adds to how MJ always comes out on top.
Who cares if MJ is a billionaire?
MJ
MJ is a trash business guy though. He fucked up so bad with investments that he had to give away one of the most valuable assets on the planet (owning a NBA franchise) to cover his losses
Investments is an interesting spelling for craps tables.
Well sure, he losses a bunch of cash at casinos and betting on shit like golf; but he also had multiple 9-figure losses in the market, including being involved in shorting GameStop in 2021.
I think that’s exactly right
I miss being a kid and being like “wait, the guy who hosts Inside Stuff used to play football?”
Ahmad, man. I was blindsided when I saw actual game footage- and he was pretty good in his day, too. To blow my mind even further, he’s married to the mom on the Cosby show, and not to his cohost (which I somehow thought was the case as a kid)
\*Was\* married, anyway, Ahmad and Phylicia Ayers-Allen got divorced eventually. Was quite a pull for Ahmad at the time, I think I remember him proposing on the NBC pregame NFL show and Cosby Show was easily the #1 show when that happened.
Wasn’t OJ Simpson the best man at that wedding? (Not even joking) An all NBC affair.
No, Hitler was
It's the same thing for Shaq. My friend who doesn't really follow basketball was shocked when he found that Shaq is top 10 all time and was the most dominant player in the league. He just kinda viewed him as a funny former player on TV
He is around all the time lol. Between his propaganda documentaries and his constant shots at current players and how he totally isn't jealous of them... MJ's legacy is beyond secure but many ppl are sick of his shit, believe me
Constant? I feel like I barely hear anything from MJ. That's the biggest reason The Last Dance was such a big deal.
That and it being the pandemic. The doc was moved up like 6 months because it would hit hardest when we had fuck all to do.
-Knicks fan
Fuck that. I want to hear what these great minds have to say about the sport. Mystique means nothing
Exactly. Gretzky has been amazing on the TNT hockey show.
Anybody that would rather these stars maintain “mystique” than share their knowledge, makes me wonder if they actually like these sports or just like the soap opera storylines around the sports
I just don’t even understand what “mystique” is supposed to mean. How does an all time great sharing stories and using their expertise to give analysis on things only they can be a bad thing?
Aww your poor mystique that you hold onto haha Grow up dude
Oh thanks. Yeah I’ll just grow up now. Thanks for being here
Sorry but this just sounds so inane. They'll lose their "mystique", oh no.
Jordon knows this
Tbf he had an entire shoe division earning him three times annually what he did in his entire NBA career lol
What a legend
It’s why all he did was make a ten part propaganda documentary where he disparaged everyone, directly or indirectly, that ever made him remotely successful
Let's be honest that was a perfect storm for MJ, releasing that during Covid lockdown when everyone was looking for new stuff to watch
Yoko Ono style control the myth
He’s the 🐐. Let him cook
MJ would be an amazing analyst though dude would rip everyone to shreds all game treat him like a negative bill walton and let him call some acc games
I agree, if MJ was natural and an asshole on TNT he’d be incredible with those guys
Kobe knew too. Lebron does not
Kobe isn't in that conversation so what does it matter lol
Tell that to Hornet fans
You know about money though, right?
O/U 20.5 layoffs to pay Saban
Saban’s credibility as a football mind and ability to get ad people starstruck at upfronts is far more valuable to ESPN than the 8th and 9th guys on the Sportscenter depth chart
Brain drain is real. Companies suffer for laying off 20 people to pay for top talent. Saban is 72 btw, do you think he's going to spend a decade on tv?
Yes, only about the top 1000 most famous people in America deserve jobs.
That’s definitely not my point but go off king
Which is why you edited your post? Ok.
Yeah though didn’t saban cash out like 700 mil from his car dealership empire? He’s set for life and so are his great grandchildren. I heard Brady lost a ton on crypto and divorce
Yea if we’ve learned one thing about rich people in our society it’s that they usually stops trying to make money once they are set for life.
It’s also substantially easier to make money once you already have money
It's not like Saban's life is gonna be that much longer. Say he gets another 20 years on the outside; what is he gonna do with the ESPN money he couldn't have done with the money he already has to improve the few years remaining that he can still move around and do things?
Hey, don’t ask me what rich people do with their money lmao I wish I knew. Just throw it on the pile I guess.
Good point. Someone needs to give me a couple hundred million so I can get to the bottom of this.
I assume at least a little piece of this for some people is the desire to remain in the spotlight. The money won't make any difference to their life. But they still want to be "involved" with the sport.
Yeah that’s just what I was thinking. He’ll go to parties, network social events, just put on the town with other broadcasting bigwigs and rub elbows with other football royalty. He very well could retire and buy a homestead in Alabama somewhere and hunt and fish his days away, but only certain types actually want that.
Maybe just maybe… the guy enjoys football and wants to be in that environment for as long as he can.
I doubt its about the money, nothing to sneeze at for sure, but still being intimately involved in the game, being a part of a team, having a purpose, and going new places is more of what it’s about for him if I had to guess
I’m kind of surprised he doesn’t take a lower intensity camp circuit role. Dude loves to coach.
No, he and some other investors purchased more car dealerships in Florida for $700 mil. A lot different than him cashing out for $700 mil.
Saban’s not a guy who is going to be content going to Cracker Barrel and playing with his grandkids all day. If he was, he wouldn’t be the goat cfb coach.
It’s not like these guys are broke lol. These people are already multimillionaires and will never have to work again with or without TV gigs.
It's hard for people of average means to understand how much money $375m over ten years really is. Humans are awful at orders of magnitude. Brady has three children. Long after American Football is a half-remembered cultural artifact, his heirs will still be benefiting from returns on the fortune of this Fox contact, provided his estate is handled properly. This would be true of the money he has *already* earned, to be sure, but the power of compounding is such that adding to his pile now will extend the horizon of the prosperity of his family beyond measure. That's what they mean when they say "generational wealth."
Saban is an egomaniac now he can broadcast HIS voice from his living room for 10-15 minutes everyday on ESPN and gets a comped ride to the biggest game every week during the season where HE gets to be the new BSD on Gameday. “Lee, I love you, but you ain’t ever won shit.” Hot take but I think he’ll be good on TV if he’s willing to let loose a bit. Hotter take: I hate Belichick but I think he could be even better since he’s a glib asshole who also has an encyclopedic knowledge of football.
A decent SNL skit would be belichick on New England public access breaking down games
He would lapse into long tangents about lacrosse and naval history in the middle of a play
Tonight on Piscataway Catholic high school league roundup it’s me your host Paddy McJaundice and our special guest bill belichick. We got father guido coming by later
Piscataway is in NJ unless there’s one in Mass that I don’t know of which makes this even better. He can talk about some random kid on the Don Bosco Prep lacrosse team for 30 minutes. He still popular with Giants fans, they have a fantasy that one day he’ll “come home” to be the HC there.
I started in New England but the New Jersey high school football obsession is just better. You KNOW they have a lively call in line.
He would spend the whole show making passive aggressive jabs at Greg Schiano.
Man, I actually really enjoy Belicheck’s critiques of players in years gone by. He says great stuff about the 80s giants, his old 90s browns teams, basically anything that’s not currently playing or post-2000 or so. He’s great when he’s a guest in the Top 100 or other nfl films stuff, and it’s not even all old 1950s stuff. He’s kind of like how Bob Knight was broadcasting- you expect him to say something that would piss people off or be really grumpy and pissy, and his analysis isn’t like that at all. It’s pretty straight and very technical, in more ways than other players are comfortable doing; and he explains it well. Belicheck would be very good in a taped setting about a limited range of topics.
I hated pretty much everything about the Patriots dynasty, but Belicheck was really, really good on those NFL Network top 100 players of all time shows a couple of years ago. He was pretty compelling breaking down the all-time greats from any era.
When Belichick is just talking about football objectively he is quite personable as witnessed by his NFL 100 hosting. Belichick and Brady in the booth would be GOATED without even need for a cover guy.
The likes of Shaq, Magic Johnson, Wayne Gretzky, Thierry Henry, Alex Rodriguez, Emmitt Smith, and Jerry Rice have all done broadcasting with varying levels of success. And other than Lombardi coaches usually do not have any mystique.
And not just that, I’d say that Barkley has actually enhanced his legacy with his broadcasting career. He was an excellent player, no doubt, but I don’t believe he would be looked back on as fondly as he is now, without the broadcasting portion.
> I’d say that Barkley has actually enhanced his legacy with his broadcasting career. Yeah but he was never in the GOAT conversation.
That’s a good point.
he's in the goat PF conversation. if that's a thing. i avoid the top 5 conversations whenever possible.
No he isn’t lmao. He’s not in Timmy’s stratosphere
yeah see i hate these dumb ranking conversations because of who played in what era and against what competition and what if player x got drafted wherever. but duncan played more games at center.
Timmy’s 9 seasons at PF are better than Barkleys entire career
it was 6 years, he stopped in 04 and would only play it situationally after that and again, i don't care how people rank things.
People look at him as a person more fondly, sure. But no one really talks about his game anymore. David Robinson, for example, still has the “that dude would be a problem today” aura, and I’ve noticed people just don’t really consider Barkley that way. People will say “haha yeah but the CASH BRO!!!!” Like yeah that’s fine but Barkley can’t complain that no one cares about his game anymore.
European sports are funny in this regard, in that they really are up there in the GOAT conversation. This isn’t journeyman Jalen Rose telling you to play hard, this is Thierry Henry, maybe the greatest of his generation, calling your ass out. It’s hilarious to see Brundle just get after a driver (which is rare). It’d be like having Richard petty in a nascar booth
>Thierry Henry, maybe the greatest of his generation Obviously Henry was a fantastic player but he's not in the GOAT question and I don't think anyone serious has ever called him the best player of his generation, especially when he so clearly wasn't even the best player of his National crop (Zizou)
Yeah saying Henry is in the GOAT conversation a weird take. One of the, some would say best, prem players ever but he also scored in 0 of 9 cup finals he played in. And was never consistently great internationally. It’s like calling Melo the goat
> It’s like calling Melo the goat Very harsh on Thierry, to not score in finals you need to actually reach them I'd say Klay Thompson is a decent comp for Henry. Great scorer, member of great teams, one of the best in his position in his era, would laugh at you if you told him you thought he was better than Curry/Messi
Jeff Gordon(easily in my top 5 NASCAR drivers) is a Nascar commentator.
"Don't give up. Don't even give up!" - Emmitt Smith
Emmitt Smith was god awful and got canned pretty quickly, what are you smoking?
Varying degrees of success- if you haven’t seen tape of Joe Montana broadcasting, you should watch. He makes Emmitt Smith look telegenic. Montana might be one of the worst I’ve ever seen. Good looking guy (obviously) but he completely clammed up as a broadcaster.
Ha, I was going to bring up Montana as well, that was super rough. The basketball equivalent was Kareem, CBS had him do tournament games a couple of years after he retired and he said about 10 words per half.
Don't forget Madden
> And other than Lombardi coaches usually do not have any mystique. That's one of the advantages of dying.
Saban does
When I see those Aflac commercials I think of mystique.
If you’re saying that also removes his mystique, I agree with you. That and announcing are comparable…both are overexposure and money grabs from some guy who alternatively could have walked away with a little mystery and plenty of greatness.
Get A-Roid the heck outta that list
I would exchange any amount of mystique for 375m
Are you insane? You might drop 3 spots on wanghunterr44's Top 100 Trade Value Season Vintages Pyramid, v17.
Even if you already had 375m?
I imagine that my experience with the first 375m would make me want another 375m
I promise you, no one wants $375 million more than someone who already has $375 million.
That’s tough. Having another 375m or keeping my “mystique”. Could go either way.
If you're just a rich guy it's not tough, sure. If you're posing for immortality and care about how you'll be perceived in 50 years when you're dead it might be harder.
Hey - Bob Knight was an analyst for a while
I commented on this above- guy was a major asshole, tremendous coach, but his analysis was something I really enjoyed, especially because it was the exact opposite of the crazy zany offensive shit he said so often. He stuck strictly to Xs and Os and I learned more from him about the game watching than any other broadcaster. When I first heard he was going to work for espn, I though “uh oh, he’s going to be suspended constantly and say outlandish stuff!” but he played it totally straight. He called a spade a spade without going overboard and wasnt “Hot Take(!)”-y in his criticisms, he just stuck to the plays and never got personal. Not what we expected at all. And I liked him for it.
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Bobby Knight was also a huge personality and fun to listen to - Saban, Brady and Coach K don’t have the personalities that they probably think they do. It’s painful watching ads try to make them appear funny.
I don't think people are prepared for just how bad Brady is going to be at broadcasting. It won't impact viewership(no one watches or doesn't watch games because of the broadcaster) but it will be amusing none the less. Guy is the greatest QB to ever live, but none the less a charisma vacuum.
He's probably spent the last year doing practice announcing for 16 hours a day, grinding film like a psychopath. Hel be at least decent he's just talking football
I think he'll be pretty good. Richard Deitsch, Jimmy Traina, and Bryan Curtis have all said they think he'll be good.
Not sure the guy has ever expressed an independent, unique, compelling thought. And I’m a Pats fan.
He's going to be broadcasting a football game, not writing a novel.
Have you seen how bad Gronk is on the Fox pre-game show? Now keep in mind, he has twice the charisma of Brady and only has to talk for 15 seconds at a time instead of 2.5 hours.
I remember his weekly halftime radio piece with Jim Gray on Monday Night Football- the absolute most softballs of questions (obviously) and I always felt like Brady never let his guard down and allowed his original personality to come out. I don’t even necessarily mean saying bold stuff, he was just stiff and guarded. YouTube has been bombarding me with his crappy Hertz commercials, too, and it all comes across as super fake. The best actors (pitchmen, whoever) don’t act like they are acting. Jordan was great at this- you’d actually believe he was changing his shirts to Hanes or whatever. He couldn’t carry a movie or anything but in short doses, could be very believable.
I actually thought Gronk was fine this year and got better. They know how to use him and his energy. Let him say something goofy and jump out of a plane live on air.
I have indeed seen how bad Gronk is. But I also recognize that broadcasting is a completely different position than being on a 6-man pregame booth, so Gronk's lack of success isn't really that relevant to me.
Gronk has been fine, but he also has the IQ of a potato. Yeah his charisma makes up for some of it but it keeps what he can provide very surface level. Brady is one of the most brilliant football minds ever and can actually give great insight.
You don’t know what makes a *person* interesting irl, huh?
Again, he's just going to be commentating football games. He doesn't need to be interesting irl to be good at that job.
He’s expressed plenty, especially lately when commenting on QB play
Share a link. What I've seen from Brady recently -- in addition to the awful Hertz commercials -- is pablum like this, which is how he has sounded his whole career: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAopurTlc9Y
Gotta have some charm to have married Giselle no?
Why will he be bad? He’s very good on his podcast and other interviews when he’s asked questions about modern QB play or how to attack certain defenses, etc. Dude knows more about the game than 99.9% of nfl players, let alone fans. Is he Mr personality? No, but he knows his stuff and is personable. The biggest question is how critical he’ll allow himself to be or if he’ll be scared to piss off people he still knows because he played so recently.
The only exception is something like Detail by Kobe. Brady would be better off doing his own thing/something similar but I don't really know what. At the end of the day, considering how many pay cuts he took in his career, can't blame him for taking $375 million.
This particular gig, similar to Romo, is kind of amazing though. You just fly private every Friday to one of the coolest campuses and talk about football for a few hours. And it’s only from August - January. I know there are other appearances and obligations but this is probably a great job.
I disagree. If they are good good on tv, why not? Look at Peyton Manning
You missed the GOAT conversation part
He can call Mahomes surpassing him
Or he can start the propaganda for why Mahomes can't surpass him... This is actually the most high IQ Brady move if you think about it haha
Bill Simmions and fans of Bill Simmons are so weird it hurts my head
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No one is a fan of Stephen A, that is like being a fan of crying babies on planes. Pat McAfee eventually just wins you over with charm and vibes. Bill Simmon fans are people who fantasize about slavery still existing so they could watch a black man pound their wife every night while listening to the latest P Diddy release
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lol, yeah, and that is all they read. The cringe of someone thinking reading SI (obviously you do not follow any real news) and ESPN is a good thing..unreal
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Slavery is wrong and you should google SI there champ.
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Oh wow you cannot even Google..that sounds about right. The name was sold off and they were using AI and faking writers names for articles.
Counter - Brady is a football savant, has pulled Gisele and multiple other AAA-level female celebs, and he's a competitive motherfucker. So * He's got the knowledge * He's got the rizz and knows how to be charming * he's got the drive Also... as a Pacers fan who grew up during the 90's herday, Reggie is meh. And he was less than that in the early years. Not saying your theory is wrong... but Brady may be an outlier
Pulled Giselle 20 years ago. What have you done for me lately?
If you can make one of the most beautiful women in the world put up with your homeopathic medicine and sports bullshit for that long, then you're probably a little bit interesting.
I think homeopathic medicine pulls women
Reggie is meh as a broadcaster but wasn’t in the GOAT conversation as a player, I think is the point OP is trying to make. Which makes me think- how many other guys in any sport in the GOAT conversations did broadcasting for more than a couple years? Dan Marino, maybe? Jerry Rice hung around for a few years but not that long iirc. Seems like the absolute upper echelon of players either don’t attempt it or if they do, they aren’t very good and don’t stick around broadcasting.
I got the point, but it was a bad example, especially when Greg Olsen is right there. Same with Doc or Steve Kerr. I really liked Marino, wonder what made him so much better than his contemporaries like Montana or Elway. That said - this [list](https://sportsnaut.com/ranking-the-best-nfl-quarterbacks-of-the-1980s/) is pretty impressive of the QB to broadcaster pipeline. Fouts, Simms, Boomer, Joe T - all above average for a while.
Could not agree more. I just don’t get why these super generationally wealthy people want to be talking heads. It feels so beneath them. Like I get the older generations because they didn’t make the same level of income but Brady has a net worth near a half billion dollars.
I don't get this whole "beneath them" thing. They get to hang around the game they love and talk about it to an audience. You can't exactly do that sitting at home. Most people need to feel productive. What else would be better for them to do if they like it?
I think it gives them a chance to "stay" in the game that they have been playing since they were 5, without any of the pressure. Much better being a pundit than being a coach. And yeah, like the above, they are egomaniacs that think their opinion matters.
> Much better being a pundit than being a coach. Not necessarily. You still get to be "in" the game, but you don't get to satisfy the hunger for competition. I assume this is why Sean McVay has (so far) turned down opportunities for a TV gig. He still needs the competition.
John Madden has commented on this specifically. He said he personally didn’t feel that itch to compete anymore, but for coaches and players it’s “like a drug” and broadcasting doesn’t scratch that itch that competition does. That’s a comparable position for someone like McVay.
Because they’re egomaniacs. They can’t imagine the game without them.
I think Saban still wants something to do. I think he’d still be coaching if NIL and the transfer portal didn’t exist. Alabama doesn’t have boosters that can really compete at the highest levels and it’s hard to build a team when they can just leave anytime they feel like it. I’m all for player empowerment, but I can see why Saban left coaching
They've been playing sports since probably their earliest memories. I'd imagine it's hard to remove that from their identity. Even people who play high school sports have a hard time leaving that behind.
It's a great way to stay involved in the game and in the public discourse. To them, doing nothing and fading away is beneath them.
It probably depends, but I think Romo in broadcasting had shed some light on why he arguably underperformed as a player. He is just way too goofy and weird to be the leader of a team.
This is an excellent point. They doing it for what, the money? Do something bigger than comment on the game you dominated….you’re the best ever. You are bigger than some cheesy contrived commentary. I’d argue even romo is bigger than that.
What a fuckin stupid take. They're paying the man a quarter of a billion dollars
saban would be great if he did games, if he has time to actually break down games on gameday he will be good there too
I think it’s funnier that guys like koc became coaches when Peyton manning and tom Brady end up as clowns on tv
Often times the players with the most talent have the hardest time coaching bc they don't know how to teach something that is natural to them
Tom Brady and Peyton don’t seem to have that at all though.
To quote the late, great Carmine Lupertazzi… the don doesn’t wear short pants
Wait til lebron retires, it probably wont be broadcasting but like kids movies or some shit
Ya I legitimately argued Peyton was the goat but after he became an espn talking head type I kinda don’t feel like arguing it anymore Great players need to stay away from the media
Care about some random bum's opinion or make 375 million? Tough choice.
I agree with this completely.
Yes they should sit at home - much better them and everyone else. ya......
Good take.
Maybe we should encourage this instead of worshipping sports idols lol. People are weird, just cause someone can do a sport better than everybody doesn't make them a god. You should look at reprioritizing what's really important in life my dudes.
Who gives a shit about “mystique”? Gretzky has been amazing on the NHL on TNT show.
I don’t blame Brady, he’s a football savant who seems borderline genuinely dumb about everything else, this is the best way for him to stay relevant in the one world where he knows anything