Tom Brady called his first New England Patriots game for Fox Sports last weekend, an occasion that the network promoted heavily all last week.
The future Hall of Fame quarterback also joined his former teammates for the 10th anniversary of their infamous victory in Super Bowl LI, in which the Patriots came back from a 28-3 deficit to beat the Atlanta Falcons. Many were curious how Brady would cover his former team on the call, especially after he claimed he had “no dog in the fight” when New England made the Super Bowl last season.
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The Patriots lost in blowout fashion, falling 45-27 to the Green Bay Packers. In most corners, Brady’s commentary went under the radar.
That wasn’t true on The Sports Hub in Boston, where longtime host Mike Felger bashed Brady for being “afraid” to criticize New England quarterback Drake Maye and the rest of the Patriots’ players.
On the Felger & Mazz show on Monday, the hosts reacted to a clip in which Brady praised Maye’s ability to grow into the offense and “think his way through the game.” However, as the hosts noted, the comments came late in the loss, after Maye had thrown three interceptions.
“He’s just so freaking afraid,” Brady said.
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“Now he gets into the broadcast where the Patriots’ quarterback is crapping the bed. I think because he’s so conscious of not wanting to dump on the next quarterback because he thinks that would look bad. If somehow I come in here and undress Drake Maye, that’s going to reflect poorly on me. Because that would mean I’m dumping on the next guy, or territorial of Drake Maye, or I’m jealous of Drake Maye. Because he’s afraid of all that crap.”
The show played other clips from the broadcast, in which Brady blamed Maye’s mistakes on his teammates’ mistakes or the Packers’ strong defense.
Felger and cohost Tony Massarotti speculated that Brady — who said he was “emotional” about calling the game — may also have been shy about criticizing Josh McDaniels, the Patriots’ offensive coordinator who also called plays when Brady was on the team. Brady and McDaniels have reportedly had a rocky relationship at times.
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“The slanted color commentary just bothers me,” Felger said. “Why are you there? I want to know who screwed up and why. If it’s uncomfortable for you, I’m sorry. Then don’t do the game. Go do a game that you feel more comfortable criticizing the players.”
While Felger praised Brady for another moment in which he noted how loose Maye was with the ball, it’s fair to say the former Patriots star did not meet the moment of a disappointing Patriots blowout. Particularly given that Fox’s Brady-heavy promotion of the game became a talking point of its own heading into the game, the network opened Brady up to even more criticism.
At the same time, Felger is putting a lot of stock into Brady’s opinion. Brady is one of the greatest ever and has improved rapidly as a broadcaster, but is far from the only one who could have explained why Maye played so poorly on Sunday.
More than anything, it seems that Felger just wanted to hear Brady go at the Patriots to prove he would. Or, Felger was simply frustrated that the Patriots played so poorly and wanted validation. Considering even Massarotti didn’t get as fired up as Felger about Brady’s commentary, it’s hard to hammer Brady too hard for how he called the game.
The post Mike Felger accuses Tom Brady of being ‘afraid’ to criticize Patriots appeared first on Awful Announcing.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
