Tom Brady’s broadcast debut draws overflow of snark, and shows No. 12 has long road ahead to prep for a Super Bowl call

The response I received to Tom Brady’s debut Sunday as a Fox NFL color analyst was so over-the-top negative, I’m surprised no one messaged me to suggest that it’s finally time for Drew Bledsoe to take a job from him.

But the collective sentiment carried the same snarky tone. One emailer, who signed his missive JC, did elicit a laugh.

“If a potato could talk,” he wrote, “it would sound like Tom Brady.”

Suffice it to say that the seven-time Super Bowl champion and Fox’s $375 million man, who replaced the excellent Greg Olsen alongside Kevin Burkhardt on the network’s No. 1 team, was not an instant sensation with viewers like CBS’s Tony Romo seven years ago.

That should not have been anyone’s expectation anyway. As I wrote Sunday, Brady is a polarizing figure because of his enormous success against the favorite teams of so many people now watching him on TV.

I won’t go so far as to say that many of the people ripping him before the first quarter of Browns-Cowboys was complete had their minds made up 10 minutes before the game started.

But when he did struggle — and he did, often, especially early on — they were ready to pounce, mock, and declare him a bust. Delighted in it, really, to the point that everyone seemed to forget that this is someone with an extraordinary history of improving and eventually excelling when he is doubted.

I’ll say it again. Brady is going to be very good at this. (Hey, I didn’t mean immediately.)

I’ll also say this: He has about 80 yards to go before he reaches that end zone. And he must get there this year — Fox has the Super Bowl broadcast. Everything Brady does along the way is the warm up for that.

Brady’s strong suit — eventually — is going to be his ability to instantly identify and articulate what he is seeing. The schemes, nuances, and intricacies. He missed an opportunity to tell us just after halftime precisely what kind of adjustments the Browns, trailing, 20-3, should have made. Instead, he said, “We’ll see if they make adjustments.”

He easily could call out plays like Romo did early on — Brady hinted at what the Cowboys and Browns were up to several times Sunday — but he will never have that kind of initially winsome frenetic energy. His thing has to be genuine insight about what might happen, and then what happened, and then why it happened.

Before Brady makes real progress, he needs to be comfortable in the booth. To be comfortable in the booth, he needs to have a better feel for the pace, rhythm, and speed of a broadcast. In that way, it could have not been much different than how he felt the first time he took an NFL field as a quarterback.

Burkhardt, the ultimate pro, often had to prompt Brady to weigh in. There were frequent silences where color analysts typically interject, and Brady really struggled with cadence — he paused after every 4-5 words, almost as if they wouldn’t come out easily. He did not sound like someone who had built a broadcasting base of 17 practice games, or worked two-and-a-half preseason games.

There were awkward moments both early and late in what ended up being a clunker — the Cowboys won, 33-17. When Burkhardt introduced him to viewers, Brady replied, “It’s been quite a journey, but I love being your partner.”

That sounded more like the renewal of a wedding vow than a commencement to a football broadcast.

In the final minute, Brady didn’t quite seem to know how to put a bow on the game.

“By no means is the season over for Cleveland,” he said. “There’s a lot of football remaining in this season.”

Well, sure. It’s Week 1, Tom. Even if they are the Browns.

Rules analyst Mike Pereira’s failure to see Brady offering him a fist bump was treated like some awkward moment on social media. Patriots fans probably got a chuckle out of it, though, given that Brady’s teammates failing to see his high-five requests was a running gag for years.

(I do wonder if some of Brady’s preparation was affected by the restrictions put on him by the NFL regarding meeting with players and coaches because of his pending ownership ties to the Raiders. It must add at least a few degrees of difficulty, and Brady was short on “so-and-so told me” anecdotes.)

Maybe this shouldn’t be a surprise, but Brady was at his best when he was focusing on the pass rush, particularly superstars Micah Parsons of Dallas and Myles Garrett of Cleveland.

“He intimidates you,” he said of Parsons. “It’s not just what he does after the play, it’s what he does before the play.”

And Brady had circled Garrett with the Telestrator right before Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, under heavy pressure and seeming to recognize the same thing Brady had, hit Brandin Cooks for an early touchdown.

Brady was also self-deprecating, and as it did during his playing days, it came across as genuine.

“I’m wrong a lot, believe me,” he said late in the fourth quarter. “Just ask my friends.”

Since drawing parallels to Brady’s playing career are obviously irresistible, here’s one more. His debut was akin to his 86-yard passing performance in his second career start, a 30-10 loss to the Dolphins in Week 4, 2001.

As you might recall, that season ended just as this one will for Fox. With a much-improved and much more at-ease Tom Brady in the Super Bowl.