The NFL playoffs kicked off yesterday with one pretty good game (Raiders-Bengals), one unbelievable night for an explosive offense (Josh Allen and the Bills, who blew out the Patriots), and one absolutely dreadful performance by an announcer who was once a very good NFL QB.
I’m talking, of course, about Drew Brees. The former Saints great was in the booth with Mike Tirico’s for NBC’s broadcast of the Raiders-Bengals game. Brees was so bad throughout the game that he had fans actually wishing that Jason Witten was back calling games. That is not good. Not good at all.
The biggest problem with Brees was that he was beyond vanilla and offered very little to the broadcast. He didn’t seem to want to be critical of any of the players, refs, or anything that an analyst should be critical of.
He was particularly bad when an inadvertent whistle was heard during a play that led to a TD for the Bengals. Brees didn’t bring that up until well after the fact. It was a big moment and should have been talked about more.
NBC just now discussing ten minutes later. Brees says that he had heard the whistle which is weird as it went unaddressed until now. Booth in agreement play should have been replayed for an inadvertent whistle.
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 15, 2022
Tirico 15 minutes later: oh wait that whistle during the Bengals TD was weird.
Brees: Yeah, I definitely heard it. Seemed like people stopped.
NBC ref guy: Yeah that whistle was when the ball was in the air, the TD shouldn’t have counted.
Great stuff. Send them all the Emmys.
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) January 15, 2022
NFL fans were not impressed with Brees:
