Tom Brady joins Colin Cowherd to discuss broadcast prep, Belichick days and Aaron Rodgers | THE HERD

well the man needs no introduction he is now at Fox you're going to see a lot of him uh his process has changed uh Tom Brady seven time Super Bowl champ five-time MVP it's great to finally see in person same here I've uh I know I ended up on one of your documentaries saying stuff that I regret now I now that we're teammates now we are teammates I apologize for everything Tom um let me start with this um you're a process guy yeah and my wife and I talk about this she's a project woman I'm a process guy she likes big projects and I think to myself you were the ultimate processed guy like Sabin bellich you like your process people and then the process goes yeah did you wake up a week after and think maybe I should play golf like like was losing the process has it been a challenge I think anytime you transition into something new there's a bit of a challenge because you're so programmed and wired to do things a certain way as an athlete there's so much physical prep that goes along with your life even in the offseason I was always thinking about was I prepared if there was a game on Sunday could I play and I would think about that in April and May and June in July and I would watch other great athletes Floyd Mayweather comes to mind like he always seemed ready to go if someone called him say hey you got a fight on Saturday he'd be like cool and I think that's how I always physically train my body um mentally it was a little bit different because there was a whole game plan element to to the process of preparing for the games so I think the biggest challenge for me is that just the structure is is is very different now in my life because you don't have the routine but I actually believe that the broadcasting at Fox this year for the first time will give me a lot more structure like I'm used to and I really actually will look forward to that so you were in the booth this weekend uh UFL Championship so it's kind of your first taste of doing it you've also been probably a half dozen times that I'm aware of been practicing upstairs so I want you to take me from the first time you put on a headset upstairs yeah until the UFL game and your last you may have practiced today when you watch the tapes do you notice a difference with you yeah I would say yes and I also think there's still so much more room for improvement and I just it's almost like when I was a player I never felt like I did things the right way there were games where I'd go in afterward and think God I'm the worst quarterback in the NFL like why would they even want me to play quarterback for this team and I'm and I'm sure I'm going to feel that way here at Fox where I finish a game and I go God I didn't even give them what they wanted and it's it's a very Challen in thing in your own mind I've asked a few people like how do you how do you know that you did a good job and I think for me so much of this is going to come down to the preparation and did I feel like I was prepared did I feel like our crew was prepared did I give them the best over the course of the week so that we could give ourselves the best opportunity to be successful for the fans because really the the game is the show we're there to add our take on it and in our our analysis but it's also did we feel like we added to the broadcast and from my standpoint I'm going to work as hard as I can in the process of it as you talked about earlier to make sure that I do deliver because I don't want to let anyone down I don't want to let the people at foxer down I certainly don't want to watch Let Let the great NFL fans down either well both quarterback and broadcaster takes the ability to compartmentalize and then quickly pull things and put them in a game or so it's very similar is that you're when you went into a football game there were things that you practiced waited to see that may not happen until the fourth quarter and then you have to take that film study fourth quarter loud crowd can't hear and implement it that's what broadcasting is I I've said this before Tom I think what you're doing is the hardest thing in sports 200 times for 8 seconds be smart yeah and if you have one if you I kick it all the time yeah people are just used to it um you're not a guy you do pretty good I've done fine are there nerves for Tom Brady you haven't had nerves forever right you're no I always had nerves because it's a performance when youd go out there on the field and you would feel like you put a lot into it was probably anxiousness and there were nerves because you the outcomes weren't guaranteed for any of us you'd go into a game you'd feel like oh we got a great Advantage this week they got a few of their guys out we're playing at home this is exactly the game we want next thing you know it's middle of the third quarter and it's a dog fight so it's you never really know how sports are going to go which is why we all tune in we tune in because the outcomes are very unexpected which if they're unexpected there's a chance of winning and losing and because of that there's anxiety and there's nerves going into every single one of those games so the only way that I knew how to combat the nerves and the anxiousness of the game was to prepare so I was someone that got really really good at my preparation over the course of my career I got really efficient with my time especially as you added a lot of other things to your life like children you know that's a that's a big addition so it's how can I prepare knowing that I have other things going on my life and I really want to be efficient with my time to make sure the time I am spending preparing is really worth it I'm I'm working on the things that are actually going to to the broadcast rather than I'm just working on things to work on them that will actually never come up right I'll throw a theory at you um and I've used you as an example on this show and Matt Stafford um offensive lines matter I believe offensive line play has deteriorated um due to the CBA they practice less I think it's the most cohesive unit and they're practicing less outside of the Lions I'm not sure there's a great o line in the league right now there feels to me very powerful yeah um what worries me I saw this with Russell first year in Denver I saw it with Aaron first year with the Jets the reason I think you succeeded and Stafford did and Kirk Cousins will because older quarterbacks are a bit more reliant on guard Center guard protection it's very important in Tampa you got Tristan wors y you were very good guard Center guard sure and you got very comfortable quickly that's what I worry about the Jets is that two things are converging Tom yeah one they've got all new offensive linemen and two many are older and older offensive linemen don't play in the preseason anymore yeah I don't worry about Aaron but take me through that you went through it with Tampa sure where you had some move Ian when you wanted grank it may have been for blocking as much as catching sure yeah there's so many nuances to the success of an offense I don't think you can ever make a bad o line good and I over the course of my career I always I believe I played with the best offensive line coach in the history of the NFL and Dantes caria and regardless of who we drafted free agents We Got U free agents in the draft free agents in free NFL free agency veteran free agency we always pieced together a unit that played really well together and all of them may not have been pro bowlers but as a unit they played as well as any team in the league and that was tough challenge for every dline you would play you'd go okay I know they're going to block us well I know Brady's the ball's going to come out quick I know they're going to have good plans when we play Man coverage they're going to have man beaters I know when we get in the red area they're going to challenge us they're going to have some different schemes in there in the Run game that we're going to prepare for we put a lot of pressure on the defense all the time to do the do things the right way as opposed to the five offensive lineman having a draft first round pick first round pick first round pick to put together a greato line so so much of greato line play is a great old line coach and I think we could talk about there's not a lot of great o line coaches anymore in the Jimmy Johnson has said for years yeah there's about six good ones on the planet at any one time absolutely and there's probably about six eight good quarterbacks on the planet and there's probably about six six eight good head coaches and there's about 68 good defensive coordinators so to try to get all the things right which is why the NFL is so competitive in my mind because there's so many challenges to keeping people together because when you have a good old line and everyone says oh this is the first ranked or second ranked or third ranked offensive line well in free agency all the teams come in they pick those guys out of that team and say all right well we were going to bring you from the Patriots the Bengals we're even their Patriots to the Chargers because they knew that our guys were developed really well also so we would lose a lot of offensive linemen you'd have to replace them and you'd have to develop them I think one of the pet peeves I have one of the great things I would say in my experience with the Patriots was every player was coached even if you were on the practice squad even if the scout team offense was out there Dante scaria was coaching the scout team offensive line as if it was a starting offensive line and I think a lot of coaches coach hey I'll just coach the starter maybe a few backups as opposed to I'm going to coach every single position so when people go down we're going to fill those guys in and they're going to they're going to just step in and play a great role for us because they're going to know all the calls they're going to know the timing they're going to know the Precision they're going to know exactly what we want to do on every play so that was the development part and I think yeah the CBA changed a lot there's less practice time I don't necessarily love that there's a lot of areas of say the techniques and fundamentals which because you don't have the time tackling run after catch you know special teams has basically been eliminated from the NFL with with a lot of the rules so that saves some time but you know you lose the kicking game parts of the kicking game so I think there's a lot of because we don't have as much time on task there's a lot of less time for us to develop the techniques and fundamentals that these players need to be successful so they go to the outside they look for coaches in the offseason to develop some of those things some of it works it may work as an individual but at the same time football is a team sport so I would see quarterbacks throwing to receivers that weren't their receivers well that's fine it might be good for you but it's not good for let's say the team that's right you know you know I I before I get into some other stuff I'm going to be a little bit of a fan on my last question but I I want to ask you this I have another theory yeah is that this is subconscious and you were able in a better spot to handle this but I have been arguing for years that number one receivers there's a duality to it they're great Randy Moss is great yeah but subconsciously even a great quarterback will feel to some degree he's indebted to get him the ball always and I thought when Dak Prescott broke into the league he was better without the great Dez Bryant right the pressure left sometimes receivers are are verbal yeah uh and I Stefon digs I would take on any team but he's verbal Brandon auk is verbal on his social sure and I and I want you to go to that is I have argued now Justin Jefferson to me is too good not to sign sure but I have always had this feeling and if you could subconsciously when Randy was there he rewarded you but but was there a feeling sometimes where's Randy sure I want to make sure ry's happy sure yeah you always felt like you had to do something to get them the ball and if they hadn't touched the ball in practice I'd make sure oh God you know hey I got to get so and so ball because I want him to keep running hard and I want him to be ready for when the ball does come and you know you see it a lot in in NFL games been practicing a lot of these games I want to see the best players touch the ball early so they can break a sweat they can get into the flow of the game and good coaches do that when you script plays at the beginning of the game you're saying okay you're the ners coach I'm going to make sure mcaffrey touches it either first or second in the game I want to make sure Debo Samuel touches it first or second in the game I'm going to throw it to him quick somehow I know the ball is going to be in his hands so he can do something with it I want to get him into the flow so we would always try to script so that everybody would feel like they were in the flow of the game the last thing you want is your number one receiver to go two and a half quarters into a game and not see a ball to get one target cuz he's going to get discouraged he's got to go out there he's got to break the Huddle he's got to run out 25 yards to his alignment he's got to run down the field as fast as he can try to get open he's got to run back to the Huddle it's a lot of effort that he's putting into not getting the ball and I think you when you can reward that guy early in the game and figure out okay where is he at how do I get him the ball and there's certain guys that are really easy to get the ball too certainly the guys that line up closer to the ball the tight ends and the slot receivers there's way more route options for them it's way easier to get them the ball because they can go to basically every part of the field whereas that perimeter receiver he's got the sideline to deal with he really can't break out if he breaks out he's got five or six yards to deal with a receiver at the tight end position or in the slot when he breaks out he's got 18 yards to deal with so you have much more space to get him actually the ball so you know it wasn't hard to get Welker the ball it wasn't hard to get Edelman the ball it wasn't hard to get gronowski the ball it was hard to get a perimeter receiver the ball if they decide that they want to take a perimeter receiver out of the gameover you just roll the coverage to them you play cover two you jam him at the line of scrimmage with someone over the top and it's very very difficult to get that guy the ball but that also gives up a lot of other things and you've got to be able to take advantage of those things and that number one receiver has to understand okay they're making concerted effort to take me away therefore my other teammates have to produce when they're playing these coverages Shawn McVey years ago did something that um it was kind of a Maverick move kind of a baller move he said I'm not going to I'm not going to play my veteran Stars One Snap in preseason and people were like whoa whoa yeah you're not going to be ready they went 8 and0 to start the season and now people at it and go yeah kind of I don't want anybody hurt now there is a line here because you're going to want a couple series of snaps like I get it you don't want to go cold yeah but it it it is interesting that um I believe and you have touched on this that the NFL is the shield and corporate and a lot of these coaches there's a dogma and a rigidity and they just don't want to change stuff and it's hard to flip the telescope and I think coaches struggle allowing quarterbacks like like you and breeze it's your offense go to the line and call what you see yeah I think coach I think quarterbacks can be over coached at the line of scrimmage not at practice sure you have touched on the fact that you don't think quarterbacks are developing that sort of preent snap is some of it the rigidity of coaching okay so it is yeah and the ability to develop that player to give him the tools so that when he gets to the line of scrimmage and he sees Blitz okay if they're blitzing me these are the two protections I can use when they Blitz these are the two or three routes that I can signal to my receivers that can beat the blitz or vice versa we have we're anticipating blitz so we call a play that's going to protect and NOP they're they're actually playing a very safe Zone I want to make sure I can get all my players out into the route and I can change the call the protection and the route so everybody can get into the defense so what are you trying to do you're trying to give the quarter back to to really be a field General quarterback you got the last swipe at the pencil you know the defense can call their play they're going to line up offense calls a play in the Huddle they walk to line of scrimmage defense calls a play they adjust to the formation offense is lined up in they have their call set it was always my job to say well I know what my play is now I look at the defense okay I think I know what they're in does what I have call is it going to work and that was my judgment and they would have to live and die with my judgment the entire team now I developed the trust within the team my teammates and the organization to say Tom we want you to have that we trust you to have that final swipe at that pencil but we're not going to snap the ball into let's say there's a a safety blitzing off the right side and I got to run right at the right side and I know that nobody can block him I'm not going to snap the ball and run it into the strong safety blitzing and Tackle our running back four yards in the back field I'd say okay if the strong safety is coming on the right and we got to play to the right what do you want me to do you want me to run to the left you want me to check to a pass those are the options that's how I would think about the game there was always a reason why I did something if if he was blitzing off the left and I wanted to run the right great let's snap the ball as fast intentional everything was intentional yeah there wasn't a time I would hope that I would have never snapped the ball into a bad defense now did I of course I did CU sometimes the defenses wanted to disguise a lot of things they didn't want to show me okay Brady likes to get a great pre- snap read let's really mess with him let's you know kind of toggle the safeties back and forth and we're going to make it challenging for him to really decipher Buffalo when I played Buffalo they wouldn't move until after the ball was snapped so if the safety was coming down on the left or on the right they were going to do it after the snap all the time and they would just play in this little shell defense ball be snapped and here they go they' rotate cuz every defense has strengths and weaknesses to it my job as a quarterback was always to delineate where the strengths and weaknesses were and was the play that I had called was it able to take advantage of the weaknesses of the defense and if it couldn't then I was supposed to get to a play that would and I think that's part of the development that I had as a player was they gave me the tools to be able to do that and they gave me the trust over a period of time that I was ultimately going to make the right decision for the team intentional uh is sometimes confused for intensity um knowing and reading the temperature in the room is important and there's a story about John Wooden the late legendary coach and he was very strict you know the Pyramid of Success and he felt his team before a championship game was tight yeah and so he made the decision he said all we're doing is dunking at practice today and that and everybody was having fun and he sensed the temperature in the room my team is tight yeah we got to have a fun practice you had what I would view as um a highly efficient don't mess around head coach yeah were there times that's a filite way to say that yes I'm trying to be very diplomatic good job um I would think you would have to provide the question I'm going to ask where there are times because of Bill's manner that you felt on a Saturday night when you go into that meeting way too tight I got to lighten this room up a little I I think the answer would be no and I think that's where Bill was actually so great and no one saw him in those moments like we did and Saturday night we were so prepared and so focused we were the opposite of tight really we were always relaxed because we had the answers to the test I knew that I went through the call sheet and let's say we had a 150 calls on the call sheet there was a meeting at at a squad meeting at 8:00 I would meet with the quarterback starting at 6:30 in the offens quarter we'd go through every single play on the call sheet and we do exactly what we did okay this is the play this is the Run what's the one thing that could mess this run up oh a safety Blitz off the right side okay great what do you want to do if that happens so I'd walk to the line of scrimmage that call was that call was made I'd break the hudle I'd look to the line of scrimmage I'd say okay the only problem I have on this play is if the safety is blitzing off the right side and then I would just look for it oh and he only did it let's say 5% of the time so most coaches would just say I just run the play whatever if they get lucky and call at the same time one for them and that's not how I played CU that one play could mean everything so I would say no no no no if it's a 5% chance it could happen what should I do if it happens so we're all on the same page so I would tell the line okay if the if this guy's blz this what I'm do I'm going to check to this play called wolf or called Beetle or called python whatever we wanted to call it this is what I'm going to do or I'm going to check to a screen Liz rip I'm going to change the protection and go to GR or grape so there was all these different code words what we had that we can get to them so quickly because it's hard to do when there's 70,000 fans right you it's hard to do with to communicate to everybody in 10 seconds to go from one play to another play but that's what the continuity allowed us to do over a long period of time that's what the same coordinator the similar Core group of players could do the same offensive line coach oh yeah we did that two years ago yeah I like that solution that work great that allowed us to win the game great we gain confidence in it so that continuity that we had with all of us allowed us to succeed in those little small percentage chances that they did something or made a call that could beat what we were doing and I think so much that's that's what the beautiful part about the sport is that's the chess game in football it's not Checkers it's not soccer where everything's reaction it's not hockey it's not basketball they're all set pieces they're all they all there's a play and when I looked at the real field generals when I played growing up with well that was John Elway Dan Marino then you got to the pton Mannings and and Drew Brees and Philip Rivers like that's all we Tred to do we Tred to say what's the defense doing and how can we beat the defense on every single play and then we'd come out of the game that's how we would judge oursel did I make the right call there not always did I make the right throw did I snap the ball into a defense that that play would actually work th this will be really dorky but I always thought you had a you were the best cold weather thrower because of your torque I'd ever seen yeah didn't mean you had the best arm you were the best cold weather thrower and you made a throw this is so dorky Chicago Bears Soldier Field yeah down the left sideline to Dion branch and I was like does everybody understand what it's like to throw in Chicago the was terrible Yeah we actually called a draw play on there and I was like I'm not throwing a draw here there was only like 11 seconds left in the half and I was like no no these guys can't move out there and there was a play called toga two goes one was up the sideline the safety major right couldn't move off the hash I kind of looked them inside I had time cuz they were pretty tired on defense and just fired it up the sideline to Dion we scored a touchdown right before halftime windy cold snow it was horrible but it was perfect that's the throw of your life I I always think people just don't get the disadvantage a lot of quarterbacks Foxboro yeah was not a great quarterback setting October 20th on and I give that credit again to the coaches we practiced in the bad weather every single day and so it was we just got so used to it I just expected 10 to 15 mph wins every time I took the field I I went to domes and I was like it's like this all the time and when you look at like Dome stats and Dome quarterbacks there's probably a three or four three to five completion percentage Advantage for the Dome quarterback the the the yards per attempt is going to go up it's just cleaner football it's like shooting a basketball in the wind versus shooting basketball you know at at one of the great Arenas here in America but we're an outdoor sport so we were going to play in Buffalo we were going to play off New England we were going to play in the medall lands every those are three outdoor stadiums in the Northeast then you had the other teams you knew you'd play so bill would just make sure we got out there and played in any condition I knew exactly what I had to wear in every single climate that we were going to play I knew I wasn't I didn't have too much on I didn't have not enough on I was always had the right amount of hand warmers in my muff just because if it was really cold I didn't want to have six hand warmers in I want to had one or two if unless it was really cold then I want to have four or five so I just knew every degree of temperature what I needed to wear for my sleeves how how early I needed to out and prepare again that continuity allowed me to do a lot of different things yeah it's it's like institutional knowledge yeah you could literally pull stuff edelman's told me that he's like it's amazing when you have the same coaches and the same sort of it is it's it's it's like uh almost military sure when you have the same corporate leaders you I I like to think of it if it's a football field every every team's starting at the their own one yard line and a lot of times the Patriots we felt like we were starting at the 30 yard line because we had continuity now we weren't starting on our on their side of the field we had a long way to go but because the continuity that was really so much of our success as time went on and it didn't always have to be the players a lot was the players we had a lot of great culture drivers of our team when I think later in my career Devon mccordi and Patrick Chung and Steph Gilmore and James White a lot of the guys up front in the offensive line group early in my career was brusi and Vel and McGinest and Larry ISO and there was so many great players I play I got to see a lot of them last week and we had so much fun just reflecting on all the time that we spent together because those were some of the most joyous moments we had in our life there was there was such a freedom to go out and just play the game that we loved and it was a just a magical time in all our lives and and I try to you try to recreate that in other places but it's very difficult cuz everyone does something a little bit differently and we just had a really unique culture there at the right time what percentage when he comes on this show what percentage of Edelman stories are true they're they're they're mostly true um often embellished sure uh so that's you know that's part of Julian and Julian's Julian's actually become a great Storyteller and you know kind of I think he's approached media a lot like he approach the NFL I think he's gotten really good at it I think he's gonna he's he's No One's Gonna outwork Julian uh Julian's gonna Julian's always going to put the time in he's going to try to suck up all the information he can from people to try to use it and and he's he's got a great personality and he always did as he played too he was someone that was well Julian got tight but then he he had this volatility between me very tight and rigid and then very relaxed and loose so yeah we've seen some of those we've seen the loose part at the fox outings quite a bit yeah no he's one of my favorite a lot of my friends can attest to that that are here today um hey I'm late I got bosses looking at me yeah don't get in trouble I already I don't want to get in trouble either I'm I'm already am you'll be fine I'm in trouble more often great seeing you thanks great to be with you guys all right Tom Brady hi everybody it's me Uncle Colin subscribe here to get the latest from the herd including exclusive behind the scenes videos more wherever you may be however you may be watching thanks again for making us part of your day

Channel: The Herd with Colin Cowherd

Views: 417,340

Keywords: Tom Brady, Football, NFL, UFL, Aaron Rodgers, San Francisco 49ers, Dak Prescott, Brandon Aiyuk, Dallas Cowboys, New York Jets, NFC, fs1, fox sports, fox sports 1, sports, sports news, NFL on FOX, trade rumors, AFC, AFC South, AFC North, NFC South, NFC North, NFC West, NFC East, AFC West, AFC East, 2024 NFL offseason, national football league, albert breer, herd interviews

Id: fwS7nlrUSZA

Length: 25min 6sec (1506 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 19 2024