Super Bowl 2025: Tom Brady's first as Fox analyst 'a dream come true'

Sunday will be the 11th Super Bowl Tom Brady has worked but his first wearing a tie rather than a football helmet.

That’s OK, though. Even as a rookie analyst for Fox, Brady said he is “incredibly excited” about watching Kansas City try to three-peat as Super Bowl champion.

“No team has ever been this close,” he said on Wednesday on a conference call with reporters to promote Fox’s coverage of Super Bowl LIX.

That includes Brady’s Patriots, who won six Super Bowls during his years in New England but never even reached a Super Bowl with a chance for a third in a row.

Brady won seven Super Bowls overall, including one with the Buccaneers, and now Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes is one victory over the Eagles away from winning his fourth at age 29. (His only loss was to Brady’s Bucs in 2021.)

“I’ve loved Patrick as a player, as a person, since he came onto the scene,” Brady said.

As for where a fourth ring would put Mahomes in historical perspective, Brady said he does not think in those terms.

“I just appreciate what we're really witnessing on the field, which is someone who is just incredibly gifted at what he's asked to do, not just physically.” Brady said. “I appreciate the mental, emotional aspect that he brings to the game as well.

“He's a really great student of the game. He prepares hard, and he doesn't have an emotional volatility to the way that he plays. He's a competitor. He's driven to succeed. He approaches that in practice, in the offseason, as well as the games.”

Brady interviewed Mahomes on Wednesday for Fox’s pregame show, part of his duties in the first season of a 10-year contract with the network.

He called working the Super Bowl “a dream come true.”

Wednesday’s conference call primarily was with reporters who cover media, and there were many questions about Brady’s second career.

He said he was pleased with his progress during the season, embraced his mistakes as learning opportunities and shrugged off social media criticism of his work. He said he has gotten feedback and pointers from the biggest names in football broadcasting, including Cris Collinsworth, Al Michaels, Tony Romo, Troy Aikman, Jim Nantz and even Greg Olsen, whom Brady supplanted in Fox’s No. 1 booth.

How would Brady judge success on Sunday?

“Obviously, there's no scoreboard for us other than how we feel genuinely about, did we approach the game the right way? Were we prepared?” he said.

“Ultimately, two things: Was I very confident in what I said, and did I really enjoy myself? I think if those last two points are ‘yes,’ then I think in the end, we did a good job.”

Brady thanked on-air and off-air colleagues for helping him along, including play-by-play man Kevin Burkhardt. What has working with Brady been like for him?

“The simplest answer is that it’s been fun,” Burkhardt said. “Tom and I built a really great friendship because we’ve spent so much time together.

“He has been able to let me in and just kind of see him as what he is, which is a great dude who loves football.”

Burkhardt called the experience “different.”

“Put it this way,” he said. “I wasn’t being followed around by people taking pictures going to dinner before.”

Brady said he mostly has been unaffected this season by being banned from production meetings, a nod to his potentially conflicted role as a part owner of the Raiders. (The ban has been lifted for Super Bowl week.)

“My ownership interest in the Raiders is much more of a long-term kind of behind-the-scenes type role,” he said. “I'm there to support the team and the leadership and the overall vision for their success.

“I think the best part for me is I love football so much, and the fact that I get to be involved with it for the rest of my life, and to showcase this great game, not just as a broadcaster, which is obviously one way, but in a limited partner role with an organization, it's something I hope a lot of other players get the opportunity to do.”

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.