Ranking the NFL color analysts: Tom Brady shines while Tony Romo struggles (just like old times)

Tony Romo, as quarterback of America’s Team, went 0-2 head-to-head against Tom Brady.

Brady, as quarterback of the best team in NFL history, finished his career with seven Super Bowl rings in 10 trips, nine of them with the New England Patriots. Romo never even made it to a conference final.

When they retired, to the delight of Eagles fans who hated them with equal vigor, each took his fame and fortune and headed to the broadcast booth.

There, Brady still dominates Romo.

That was never more apparent than Sunday, when Romo ruined the broadcast portion of an already ugly AFC championship game on CBS. Immediately afterward, Brady burnished a brilliant NFC title game for Fox. As on the field, the contrast in the booths was hideously stark.

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With only one game to go, it seems like a good time to review that most controversial of TV entities: NFL in-game analysts. Mike Tirico, broadcasting’s version of the vanilla milkshake, and Cris Collinsworth, who’s my No. 3, will present Super Bowl LX in two weeks on NBC. It will be fine, but it will be hard.

Color commentary is vastly more difficult than you can imagine. I’ve done it a few times as an emergency replacement for a basketball broadcast, and, in the parlance of social media, I sucked.

The job requires research, alertness, rhythm with a partner, familiarity with every coach, and mastery of the game’s history. It requires knowledge of rules, of strategy, of game-day procedures, of tendencies, of strengths and of weaknesses.

Then, in real time, you have to explain what’s happening to millions of mildly inebriated fans, most of whom wouldn’t know a naked blitz from a naked blintz.

It’s like a cardiologist describing heart surgery to Grey’s Anatomy fans.

The bashing of NFL booth analysts has become a weekend sport on social media. Keyboard warriors armed with pimple patches and analytics dissect every misspoken word or overlooked strategy, and they attack with verve and glee.

That said, for years we were spoiled by masters of the craft, none better than Pat Summerall and his partner, the granddaddy of authentic commentary, John Madden, unburdened by the precision of high-definition television and, for the most part, by replay review. It was a simpler, better time.

My job keeps me busy most football weekends. As a result, I’m not free to watch many other NFL games, and so I am less familiar with the flat-screen visitors to man caves and dens on weekends and Monday nights. However, thanks to Thursday Night Football, other prime-time and Sunday-morning broadcasts, and the Eagles’ recent abrupt exit from the playoffs, for the past few months I’ve been able to catch a few games.

And … man, was I disappointed.

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I covered Romo and Brady extensively as players. It was hard to dislike Romo and impossible to like Brady. Now, it’s hard to listen to Romo and impossible to dislike Brady.

I expected Romo to be a star.

Having covered him extensively and having found him to be comfortable, affable, and knowledgeable, I was delighted with his “Romo-stradamus” debut with CBS in 2017. He seemed to correctly predict every big play call, then offer pointed commentary as to why it worked or why it didn’t.

He seldom does that now. Instead, he constantly offers banal observations in the most excited of tones, often contradictory and seldom helpful. It’s just a lot of hyperbolic blather, never worse than in the moments after he talked over Jim Nantz following Patrick Mahomes’ game-winning touchdown pass in Super Bowl LVIII.

On the other hand, I expected Brady to be a flop.

I covered Robo-Tom in four of his Super Bowls, as well as many other big games, including the Battle of the Unbeatens in Indianapolis in 2007, when he and Randy Moss beat Peyton Manning. I was embedded in New England before the AFC championship game after the 2017 season. Never once did Brady give me any reason to expect he would be anything more than a wax statue in the broadcast booth.

Wrong.

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It pains me to say that after an uneven debut in the 2024 season, which culminated with an unremarkable Super Bowl LIX broadcast of the Eagles’ win, Brady is getting better every week. As part of Fox’s first team, he often will correctly identify a penalty in real time so, when the play ends, he immediately reports who committed the penalty long before the official announces it. Troy Aikman used to do this with regularity, less so now. Collinsworth and Kirk Herbstreit often get this right, too.

Brady’s voice sounds like it belongs to a JV basketball player, but he gets his point across. Brady just seems to know more about the game than the rest of the color commentators; or, at least, Brady seems to care more about teaching the game to viewers.

His concise, clear dissertation on throwing techniques in windy conditions during the Eagles’ windy wild-card loss Jan. 11 was perhaps the best explanatory moment in the history of NFL broadcast booths.

He was equally brilliant with his explanation Sunday of why Seahawks receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s route-running is so efficient: “He maintains the same shoulder plane when he runs his route, so it’s really hard for any defensive back to get a bead on what he’s doing.”

Madden, a college lineman and then an offensive line coach, introduced America to the intricacies of trench warfare. Collinsworth is great at diagnosing coverages. Romo, meanwhile, seldom provides a level of detailed technique insight for any position, much less quarterback, receiver, and defensive back, the positions with which he should be most familiar.

Why does any of this matter? Why pick on Romo, in particular?

Because Romo is in the middle of a 10-year, $180 million deal that expires after the 2030 season, which makes him the second-highest-paid NFL analyst. CBS reported that it just enjoyed its best season ever, and the network debunked rumors that his future might be in peril. So, at 45, he isn’t going anywhere.

Fox, meanwhile, was roundly criticized for giving Brady a 10-year, $375 million contract that began in 2024, which made him the highest-paid booth analyst in sports despite his complete lack of experience.

They’re at the top of the food chain. At least Brady belongs there.

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Incredibly, this was just his second season in the booth. Brady still lacks the strategic chops of, say, Greg Olsen, whom Brady replaced as Fox’s No. 1 color commentator last year, but Brady’s already better than Romo ever was.

Should Brady continue to be allowed to own part of the Las Vegas Raiders while acting as an analyst? That’s an entirely different conversation. Have at it. I generally figure that leagues can do whatever they want, within the constraints of the law. Besides, any insider information Brady gleaned during his weekly preparation as a Fox analyst certainly didn’t help the Raiders much. They went 7-27 the last two seasons.

As for his primary vocation: Will Brady, who is 48, be the G.O.A.T. in the booth, as he was on the field?

Probably.

Madden remains unmatched.

ESPN’s Aikman remains the best and easiest listen in my book, and has been for most of the last 25 years. Then, Brady.

Collinsworth annoys people, but I think that’s a byproduct of his natural smarminess, because he’s a perfect complement to Tirico’s earnestness.

I think I’m in the minority when I say I enjoyed Herbstreit on Amazon Prime, at least I did early this year. In the fourth year of a five-year deal, the college football mainstay seemed to come into his own as an NFL commentator this fall. However, he routinely travels thousands of miles every week covering both pro and college ball, and the toll began to show in his commentary later in the NFL season. He’s a free agent after next season, and he’ll be 57. Hopefully, Herbstreit will dial things back and concentrate on the NFL.

Romo now comes in last.

This feels a little like punching down. Romo seems to be doing his level best. Maybe he’s a victim of the lofty expectations his early years created. Maybe he’s been coached to be more expressive and less technical.

Romo’s current slump reminds me of the point in his career when, after a promising first six seasons as a starter, he led the NFL in interceptions in 2012. Romo then had his best season in 2014 before injury forced him to the booth.

Maybe he can rebound in this career, too.

But, as in the NFL, Romo will never catch the G.O.A.T.