If you happened to be watching the Buffalo Bills-Los Angeles Rams game Sunday afternoon on Fox — a game that finished with 86 combined points, 902 total yards and more offense than the 1983-84 Edmonton Oilers — the last two minutes revealed the broadcasting potential of Tom Brady.
The Rams led 44-35 with 1:35 left when Brady first emphasized to the audience that Buffalo could get into field goal range and still be in a good position, given the team had banked all three timeouts. There was high drama when the Bills’ drive continued thanks to a pass interference call on a fourth-and-15 play.
Enter Brady, with the Bills deep in the red zone with 1:11 left:
“The interesting thing is they still have three timeouts,” Brady said. “At that point, they are not costing themselves any clock. The ball is out of bounds with a chance to score a touchdown now. You are in great position. They just can’t do anything inbounds at this point. Worst case, three shots at the end zone. You get a little bit of time off the clock but nothing inbounds where you have to use a timeout.”
This is what Fox had in mind when they gave Brady a 10-year, $375 million contract — what a Hall of Fame-to-be quarterback thinks about in game-defining moments such as these.
A pass interference penalty in the end zone put Buffalo at the 1-yard line with 1:06 left. Again, Brady informed the audience about the timeout situation: “They can’t use a timeout or they are forced to go onside kick,” Brady said.
Then came one of the biggest plays of the game. Bills quarterback Josh Allen was stopped at the goal line with 1:01 left. The Bills were forced to use a timeout.
Brady was all over it. “You have a three percent chance of an onside kick,” he said. (The correct stat was 7.7 percent, which Fox’s always-excellent top NFL production truck smartly put up a minute or so later.)
“To me, you take three shots throwing and don’t use a timeout, and then you can kick it deep and use your three timeouts and still get the ball with good time,” he said. “It changes the entire complexity of the last 1:02 of the game. … I did not like that one bit. That could have just cost them the game right there.”
After the Bills scored a touchdown, Brady went back to this topic with 1:00 left. “The way these onside kicks are, there is a very low percentage of doing it,” he said. “Not to harp on it but I thought that quarterback sneak on first down was absolutely the wrong decision. It just puts you in a situation now where they could have kicked it deep, still with a lot of time remaining and get a much better chance of field position after getting a stop.”
The Rams recovered the onside kick, and Brady continued to inform when L.A. had the ball on their final drive. With the Rams facing a fourth-and-7 with seven seconds left, Brady said, “It is not a clear decision at seven seconds, but I think with six seconds left, it is very clear to take the snap and you launch the ball high and far out of bounds. … Punt it as high as you can. You have a punt rush coming. I wouldn’t make it returnable in any way. I would kick it out of bounds, angle it.”
The clock ran out on the punt. Rams win, 44-42.
It was Brady’s best broadcasting sequence of the season.
Other observations from Brady’s performance
• From my ears, Brady remains way too hesitant to criticize officiating. Fox gets bailed out because they have on-air rules analysts Mike Pereira or Dean Blandino in the booth with the “A” group, but it’s an issue. Where Brady offered an interesting perspective about Allen being too risk-taking, it took him forever to offer little about what was a questionable call from the officials who flagged Rams linebacker Byron Young for a late hit on Allen. That’s where the restrictions for Brady as a part owner of the Raiders come into play.
• Social media sites will come and go, whether X, Bluesky, Threads, TikTok or whatever. But let me tell you what will endure long after we have all passed through this glorious earth: People commenting on famous NFL broadcasters.
• Brady is a much looser broadcaster in Week 14 than he was earlier in the year. I’ll give you an example: When Brady’s play-by-play partner Kevin Burkhardt referenced the Stanford band from the famous Cal-Stanford game in 1982, Brady imitated the famous call of “The Band Is On The Field!” He did so with a hoarse voice — a result of being in the studio the day before — and the voice cracking made the moment even more amusing.
• Brady will continue to get games of significance over the next two weeks featuring AFC teams. The group has the Pittsburgh Steelers at the Philadelphia Eagles next Sunday, Dec. 15, and then the Steelers at the Baltimore Ravens on Dec. 21.
(Photo of Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott, left, and Tom Brady by Harry How / Getty Images)
