The Match Proves We Need More Gaming On Television

Tom Brady may not sport the best record in promotional golf tournaments, but his postseason football record is immaculate, and may never be topped. After losing to Aaron Rogers and Bryson DeChambeau yesterday in The Match, Brady’s televised golf record with Phil Mickelson dropped to 0-2. The duo previously lost to Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning in May 2020.

"I feel like I'm the unfortunate variable to winning and losing with Phil," Brady said.

Brady famously sports seven Super Bowl rings, an NFC championship, and a record nine AFC championships. Two of those Super Bowl losses came at the hands of Peyton’s younger brother Eli Manning, including the famed perfect season of 2007. As a little friendly trash-talk before The Match, Peyton credited his own mother for keeping Brady’s title count under double-digits.

“If it wasn’t for my mother, Olivia Manning, he’d have 11 of ’em,” Manning said.

Between the two of them, the Manning brothers were able to thwart Brady five times in the postseason. The joke is that without them having been born, Brady would have run roughshod over the entire league for twenty years, even more so than he already has done.

Brady is now so high up in the rarified air that all trash talk sent his way sounds like ironic groveling, but if anyone can at least fire off an occasional decent barb, it’s the Manning clan. Tom’s body of work will always be untouchable, and Peyton knows it, but there is still some fun to be had either in the media or during special events.

Producers were able to capture some of that lighthearted fun during a mid-match call from Brady to his friend and TE Rob Gronkowski.

The Match gave us a few candid and funny moments, and its future success will likely hinge on the kinds of personalities and angles that producers can wrangle. There’s so much potential for non-sanctioned sporting events in our current media landscape.

Here’s to hoping that in this era of squeaky clean political correctness we can still have some fun in the public eye.