Tom Brady wasn’t trying to be critical of Daniel Jones.
Then he admitted he was throwing a “little” bit of shade toward the Giants quarterback.
Brady, 47, was speaking on a stage with ESPN host Stephen A. Smith on Friday during the first day of Fanatics Fest at the Javits Center in Manhattan when the topic of how he’d handle calling quarterbacks making mistakes while in the broadcast booth arose — before Jones caught a stray.
The seven-time Super Bowl champion, who is joining the No. 1 Fox NFL broadcast team with Kevin Burkhardt this season, said he wouldn’t be as critical of quarterbacks he’s talking about on TV as he was toward himself when he threw an interception to the opposition.
“I would walk to the sidelines and say, ‘You are the worst quarterback in the world. How could you possibly make that throw? Terrible!’” Brady said when Smith asked him as to why he’d be cautious in his approach. “But I don’t want to be so critical because in some ways I don’t necessarily know exactly what the problem was on that play.”
That’s when Brady started to give a hypothetical, using the Giants signal-caller as an example for his larger point.
“Let’s say Daniel Jones throws an interception,” Brady said with a mix of laughs, boos and groans coming from the live New York audience.
“I didn’t mean to say it like that. I wasn’t even being critical of Daniel Jones,” Brady added. “Maybe I was a little.”
Jones, 27, is entering his sixth year with the Giants in what is shaping up to be a make-or-break year for the quarterback.
After signing a four-year, $160 million deal last March, Jones struggled through an injury-plagued 2023-24 season in which a neck injury and torn ACL limited him to six games — with just two touchdowns to six interceptions.
As HBO’s “Hard Knocks” earlier this summer showed, the Giants sought to potentially move up in the draft to select either Drake Maye or Jayden Daniels.
But in the end, a trade did not come to fruition, solidifying Jones as QB1.
And on Saturday, nine months removed from his knee surgery, Jones will take the field for game action when the Giants play the Texans in their second preseason game.
Fox has already teased some of its featured “America’s Game of Week” contests, and it appears Brady will likely get to call Jones and the Giants during the regular season for Week 13’s Thanksgiving matchup with the Cowboys.
