Giants icon rips Tom Brady over controversial Daniel Jones comments

Tom Brady generated headlines during Fox’s broadcast of the Thanksgiving Day game between the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys when he criticized current Minnesota Vikings quarterback Daniel Jones for asking the Giants for his release after Big Blue relegated him to QB4 duties. 

“To think that you would ask for a release from a team that committed a lot to you is maybe different than I would have handled that,” Brady said. “I faced them (challenges) in college. Some things didn’t go the way I wanted. The people that mattered most to me were the guys in the locker room,” Brady said. “I showed up every day, I don’t care if they asked me to be scout team safety, be scout team quarterback, I was going to do whatever I could to help the team win.”

Giants icon Tiki Barber, who works as an in-game analyst for CBS Sports, responded to Brady on Monday and suggested the seven-time Super Bowl champion lacked information about the subject because of certain restrictions he faces as an announcer who also serves as a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders.

“Do you think he’s having that conversation because he doesn’t do production meetings? If you have any kind of conversation with anybody on the Giants, you’re not saying that,” Barber said about Brady during Monday’s edition of the WFAN afternoon show, per Andy Nesbitt of Sports Illustrated. “I honestly don’t think you’re saying it that way.”

Whether or not Brady being kept out of pre-game production meetings made him unaware that the injury guarantee for 2025 attached to Jones’ contract caused the Giants to turn the 27-year-old into an inactive spectator is unclear. Had Jones and the Giants not agreed to a mutual parting of ways after the club’s Week 11 bye, it’s likely he wouldn’t have been allowed to participate in any football-related activities until he was released at the start of the new league year in March. 

“The first thing I thought about when I heard this [from Brady] during the game was I don’t think he’s talked to anybody about this Daniel Jones situation,” Barber added. “I was there when they released him. …I don’t think Tom is privy enough to the information that he needs to be to have that conversation about Daniel Jones. To criticize Daniel Jones like that, that’s just wrong of Tom.”

While others previously noted Brady isn’t doing as much work as other commentators due to the strict guidelines he must follow, such takes came from media insiders and other analysts who never featured for an NFL team. Like Brady, Barber is a former player who got into broadcasting and, thus, would know if not attending production meetings would make it harder for a first-year announcer to do his job. 

Brady has a history of using live Fox assignments as a way to respond to comments made about him. One wonders if he’ll have anything to say about Barber’s take this coming weekend.