Watch: Bob Costas makes Tom Brady prediction for Super Bowl LVII
Not everybody is convinced that recently retired quarterback Tom Brady will be absent from Fox’s Super Bowl LVII coverage on Feb. 12.
“In the immediate future, Fox has the Super Bowl this year,” legendary broadcaster Bob Costas explained during an appearance on CNN, as shared by Brandon Contes of Awful Announcing. “So I would expect that he will be part of their coverage. Not in the game itself, but there’s a six-hour pregame, and then a halftime, and then a postgame. And they’d be very foolish not to want Tom Brady to be front and center as part of that.”
Brady ended a short-lived retirement to return to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last March, and it was learned two months later he’d agreed to a 10-year deal reportedly worth $375 million to eventually become Fox’s lead NFL analyst. Brady is not expected to join play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt and Fox’s current No. 1 analyst Greg Olsen in the booth for the upcoming Super Bowl, but Costas wasn’t the first person to suggest the seven-time champion could play some role in the network’s programming marathon that Sunday afternoon.
However, TMZ Sports reported early Thursday morning that Brady is “going to enjoy his first true break from football in a long time” and doesn’t plan to begin his Fox tenure “for several months.” That story added Brady first intends to split “time with his kids in Miami and New York” this offseason.
Olsen became a fan-favorite for his on-air contributions throughout the 2022 season, and Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reported Wednesday that the retired tight end has a clause in his contract that lets him leave Fox for a No. 1 job if he loses his seat to Brady. For what it’s worth, Richard Deitsch of The Athletic recently noted that individuals “who have been in production meetings with Brady on the TV side” say he “will do better at the job than you might expect” right out of the gates.
Perhaps Fox wants to test that opinion as soon as the second Sunday of February.
