New England Patriots
“I’m really talking about this awesome program that’s been built, and the Patriots just always seem to do things the right way.”
Tom Brady will be back in Foxborough this weekend. AP Photo/Jerome Miron, file
November 3, 2026 | 4:42 PM
4 minutes to read
Ahead of his anticipated return to Gillette Stadium on Sunday, Patriots great Tom Brady appeared on “The Herd with Colin Cowherd” on Tuesday to discuss calling a primetime matchup between New England and the Green Bay Packers.
Brady will be on the call for Sunday’s game, making the first time he’ll be in the broadcast booth for a Patriots game since joining Fox as their top NFL color commentator prior to the 2024 season.
Brady will be in the Gillette Stadium broadcast booth alongside play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt, with Erin Andrews and Tom Rinaldi serving as sideline reporters for the bout between the Patriots and Packers.
For Brady — who won six Super Bowl titles over his 20 seasons with the Patriots — returning to Foxborough will be a cathartic experience, even though his role in football has certainly changed over the last few years.
“It’ll be certainly emotional,” Brady told Cowherd. “I mean, every inch of that stadium I’ve been through so many times, from the locker rooms to the meeting rooms, the fields. Just so many memorable plays in that stadium — big games, championship games, rivalry games, division-clinching games. So to be back there and to really understand what that Patriot organization is all about, and to convey that to the fans in a way where I’m not talking about myself?
“I’m really talking about this awesome program that’s been built, and the Patriots just always seem to do things the right way. Last year in the Super Bowl, kind of came out of nowhere. Such a terrible season the year before. Coach [Mike] Vrabel comes in and just really resets the entire environment. Josh McDaniels does an incredible job with Drake Maye. Drake is an MVP candidate, and it’s a tough loss to the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. I don’t think anyone was beating the Seahawks on that particular day.”
While Brady raised a few eyebrows last February when he wouldn’t pick between the Patriots and Seahawks in Super Bowl LX, the future Hall of Famer has doled out plenty of praise for the 2026 Patriots and Maye — especially after overcoming a lackluster start this year.
“They come back this year and they kind of start slow, and everyone thinks, ‘Oh, you know, this Patriot team and Drake Maye, maybe he’s not as good as we thought.’ And then they’ve been on a tear recently,” Brady said. “So I love this game.
“The Packers are a team I’ve already covered this year — kind of know the ins and outs of that team. Coach [Matt] Lafleur is an awesome coach. [Packers QB] Jordan Love’s playing [as well] as he’s played in his entire career. So it’s just a great AFC/NFC matchup. These don’t happen very often, and again, I get to be there to watch it in person in front of a very friendly home crowd. I’m very, very excited.”
The 5-3 Patriots will have their work cut out for them on Sunday against a Packers team that boasts an identical record.
Like the Patriots, the Packers have been hampered by injuries across their depth chart.
Still, Love has elevated the roster around him so far this year — throwing for 2,246 yards, 16 touchdowns, and six interceptions through eight games.
A lot has changed since the last time Brady took the field with the Patriots in January 2020.
But when Cowherd asked what made Gillette Stadium such a house of horrors for opponents for close to two decades, Brady stressed that it was a team-wide effort that made the Patriots such a daunting opponent, especially at home.
“Now that I’m removed from it a little bit, [I’m] so much more reflective on my time there and what made it so successful,” Brady said. “We had great players, very smart. We weren’t all high draft picks, though. … We had a lot of guys who we valued being very smart, very tough, being able to adapt our system every week and to make our opponents play left-handed.
“That’s kind of the hallmark of that organization. And then emotionally, we were very competitive every week, and I thought Coach [Bill] Belichick did the most incredible job of any head coach in history of preparing us to play. We tried to win every phase of the game. … So I think a lot of teams, when they came to play us, they were nervous. They were, ‘Oh man, if we make one mistake, we’re going to lose.’
“And they’d make one mistake in the first drive, and that’s what you feel. They’d feel like, ‘Oh man, we can’t win now.’ Now they probably could have, had they not had that defeatist mentality about him, but part of winning all those games over the years, it puts some PTSD in our opponents as well. … It’s kind of like when you walk in, and you’ve got Mike Tyson in his prime on the other side of the ring. You’re like, ‘Oh man I’ve seen this guy knock everybody out. I don’t want to get knocked out, too.’ So you’re covering up from the start, and next thing you know, he tees off on you.”
Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.
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