Jason Kelce beat Tom Brady in Super Bowl LII and now he’s beating him in retirement. Kelce has done everything right. Brady is doing everything wrong.
There’s a chance this could become the NFL’s version of Charles Barkley vs. Michael Jordan. Barkley couldn’t beat Jordan on the court, but he’s won the competition for having a better post-playing career. Kelce is nowhere near the player Brady was. So far, he has an early lead in life after football.
Kelce gets to go on ESPN as a panelist, talk a little ball and wear funny outfits. He even gets to drink on air. Then he goes to his wildly popular podcast to talk to his brother Travis – something he would do for free. We’ll see if his late-night show on ESPN, “They Call it Late Night with Jason Kelce,” takes off. Maybe he’s getting a bit over-exposed and the ratings will struggle. It doesn’t matter, because the stakes are low.
Brady needs to be on top of every detail as a game analyst and then he gets picked apart for three hours every Sunday. Every little mistake — like confusing Jordan Love and Jalen Hurts on Sunday — becomes news. Despite the forced smile plastered on his face, Brady doesn’t look like he’s having fun.
Kelce goes to the Eagles facility all week to help out his former team however he can. No one will blame Kelce if things go wrong in the playoffs. But he gets to feel deeply connected to the team and if they win he’s going to be shirtless and champagne-soaked just like the players.
Brady is now taking on the assignment of rebuilding the Las Vegas Raiders. Rebuilding any team is tough. The Raiders are extra challenging. They don’t have a quarterback. They are going to lose a lot of games. Who do you think everyone will point their finger at if the Raiders go 4-13 again next year?
Brady has taken on two impossible assignments. As much as he’s improved on the mic this season, he’ll never meet the standard he set as a player. Why do you think Jordan never took a job in television?
Brady’s decision to follow in Jordan’s footsteps and run a team is also perilous. The NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero told Rich Eisen that it’s the “Tom Brady Show” in Las Vegas. Building a team takes time and hard work. There’s no way the public or full-time owner Mark Davis will give Brady five years to contend. Just like his broadcasting career, the expectations will be wildly unfair.
There’s also Brady’s schedule. Will he be watching film of the two teams in the Super Bowl and then turn around and start grinding tape on a left guard from Bowling Green? Maybe that won’t be his job and he’ll just make the big decisions. Is that enough to transform a Raiders franchise that hasn’t won a playoff game since 2001?
While Kelce keeps it simple with his media responsibilities and informal relationship with the team, Brady’s dual roles will cause nothing but trouble. Do you really think Brady was forthright about his level of involvement with the Raiders before the league approved his partial ownership last October? He probably told the other owners he’d be closer to Magic Johnson … sending out vanilla social media posts after his teams win. Magic isn’t finding middle relievers for the Dodgers or hiring the tight ends coach in Washington.
The league has already put limitations on Brady as a broadcaster. Now that he’s so involved with team-building, they’ll watch him even closer. He seems to be working around not being able to meet directly with coaches and players in the weekly production meetings. But the restrictions the NFL put on criticizing officials puts Brady in a vulnerable spot. What if there’s an egregious error – like the missed pass interference call in the 2018 NFC title game between the Rams and Saints? Brady would have to be careful on the biggest stage about how he handled that situation and opens himself up to easy criticism.
Some speculate that Brady will walk away from the television booth so he can focus on the Raiders. If Brady was a one-and-done, he would go down as the greatest failure in sports broadcasting history. Not because he’s the worst analyst. Not at all. It’s a matter of star power. Jason Witten being one-and-done on “Monday Night Football” was bad, but that’s Jason Witten. Brady will be judged much differently. FOX made the biggest financial investment ever for a football commentator in Brady. A quick exit would go over terribly.
The potential downside of running the Raiders is even greater. Brady has a reputation as the smartest player of all time. A few bad decisions and everyone will conclude that his genius didn’t translate to the front office. He had to be realistic about the assignment in Las Vegas. The Raiders sit in a division with Andy Reid, Jim Harbaugh and Sean Payton. They’re still digging out from poor draft decisions during the Jon Gruden era. At No. 6 in this year’s draft, they don’t have a great shot to land the quarterback of the future. And the free-agent class is thin.
If Brady and the Raiders were smart, they’d tank in a major way next season. Let Brady convince his former rival and now buddy Peyton Manning to send Arch Manning his way. But the optics of Brady standing there and watching the team go 1-16 would be devastating. For the first time in his life, he’d wear the loser label, even if it was part of a larger strategy to win.
Meanwhile, Kelce is linked to not one, but two potential champions. He’ll enjoy the fruits of a potential Eagles playoff run. And he’s been able to join Chiefs Nation with little blowback from his fans in Philly.
We’ll see how Kelce and Brady’s paths unfold from here. Maybe Brady relishes this level of difficulty and will surprise everyone, like he did as a player. Or maybe he’ll be like other GOATs and never be able to recapture the magic he had on the field.
Not having that status as a player gives Kelce all the space in the world to grow as a media personality… and his commitment to enjoying himself along the way sets him up for success. All Brady is setting himself up for is more scrutiny.
