When he retired from pro football after an instantly legendary career in which he won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots and another in the first of his three years playing for the Tampa Bay Buccanneers, Tom Brady had never spent a moment calling a football game from a broadcast booth. That did not stop Fox Sports from bestowing a 10-year, $375 million contract upon the certain Hall of Famer.
After taking a year off, Brady debuted in the Fox booth this season and perhaps not surprisingly considering the 47-year-old’s lack of experience in the role, received generally mixed reviews. But as the season went on, Brady appeared to settle into his role, and become more comfortable making predictions as well as criticizing players and coaches, always the prickliest aspect of the commentator’s job for former players in football or any sport.
Brady and his regular broadcast partner, Fox Sports lead play-by-play announcer 50-year-old Kevin Burkhardt, were on the call Saturday for the NFC divisional round game pitting the heavily favored No. 1 seed Detroit Lions â who at 15-2 finished with the best record in franchise history â against the sixth seeded Washington Commanders who put in a 12-5 season and who squeaked by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 23-20 in the Wild Card round.
Lions Self-Destructed on One Crucial Play
The game turned out to be a mistake-ridden fiasco for the Lions who ended up making a brutal exit from the 2024 season, falling to rookie quarteback Jayden Daniels and the Commanders 45-31. That made the Lions only the second No. 1 seed in NFL playoff history since the first Super Bowl season of 1967 to give up 45 points in a playoff game.
In fact, in 575 NFL playoff games in the Super Bowl era, only 22 teams have ever allowed 45 points or more.
But the game turned on one fateful Lions mistake, in particular. About a minute into the fourth quarter , Washington was in the middle of what turned out to be a 15-play, 70-yard drive that had taken them to the Lions’ five-yard line. But Detroit had Daniels and his offense in a fourth down situation needing two yards to keep the drive alive. At the time, Detroit trailed by only three points, 31-28. A stop would have given the Lions the ball with plenty of time to stage a drive of their own that would have at least tied the game and, just as importantly, stifled the Washington momentum.
And then the Detroit defense and coaching staff made a crucial and under the circumstances inexcusable blunder. Coach Dan Campbell could have erased the error by calling a time out. But he apparently did not see what was going on.
Brady Saw Penalty Coming 10 Seconds Ahead of Lions Coaches
But Brady did. A full 10 seconds ahead of the Detroit coaching staff, and before the officials threw a penalty flag, Brady called out the mistake .
“Need a timeout! Twelve on the field, timeout! Timeout! Timeout!” Brady called out, on the air, then watched helplessly as Campbell and the Detroit staff did nothing. “Nope. Nope.”
Then, once the officials called the 12-men-on-the-field penalty, giving the Commanders a first down and advancing them to the 2 1/2 yard line, Brady lamented, “Oh no! What are they doin’?”
Two plays later, the Commanders scored and the Lions never came close after that.
âMiscommunication,” Brady said after the play. “Itâs one of those things that youâve gotta see.”
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