Dan Patrick has his suspicions on why Drew Brees is leaving NBC.
The Post’s Andrew Marchand broke the story on Sunday that Brees and NBC Sports are splitting up after just one year together. Brees kind of denied the story in a tweet, saying it wasn’t finalized, citing remaining at NBC as an option along with returning to the NFL and other ways he might spend his year.
Patrick is the former host of NBC’s “Football Night in America,” and painted a picture of the studio show being boring for someone like Brees, who is accustomed to the action on the field.
“I think this has to do with Drew Brees saying, ‘There’s no fun being a studio analyst,'” Patrick said. “He’s Drew Brees! He’s used to going out to a stadium, people either yelling your name because they support you and love you, or yelling at you because you could beat their team that day. You go to an antiseptic studio in Stamford, Conn., Sunday morning. You walk in and see Mike Florio, Peter King, Chris Simms. You’re probably going: ‘This isn’t fun!'”
Patrick contrasted the studio, where someone might get 30-40 seconds at a time to talk, with game broadcasts, which feature a constant stream of conversation in the booth at the stadium.
“Being at a game is really important for Drew Brees, because you can never replicate that [playing], but the closest you can get is to be at a game site and doing the game!” Patrick said.
While Brees, who turned 43 in January, was on the Notre Dame broadcasts, it did not appear that he was in line to succeed Cris Collinsworth as the “Sunday Night Football” color commentator anytime soon.
For now, we’ll see if Brees remains a broadcaster, perhaps at Fox Sports, where they will be waiting at least one more year for Tom Brady to join the top NFL announce booth, or do something else with his time.