Tony Romo has quickly become one of the best color commentators the NFL has to offer. He has an eerie ability to call plays before they happen, but his comments are in the news for all the wrong reasons. When he should have been celebrating a lifetime achievement from Tom Brady, Romo chose to objective Gisele Bundchen instead. Here’s what happened.
600th Touchdown
Here’s the list of every single quarterback in the history of the NFL to throw 600 touchdown passes: Tom Brady. That’s it, that’s the entire list. Number 600 went to Mike Evans who didn’t know about the accomplishment. He customarily gave the ball to a fan wearing his jersey. This was a problem.
Brady naturally wanted the ball as a souvenir, but now a fan had it. Officials from the Buccaneers immediately began negotiating to get the ball back. Here’s where Romo stuck his foot in his mouth. Mimicking the fan and the official, Romo said a date with Bundchen was the key to the negotiation.
Romo says, obviously as a crude joke, that the fan would like “a date with Gisele. A date with Gisele and I’m in.” He followed up from the Bucs employee, “OK, Tom will do it. One time, you got it.” Some viewers were immediately put off by Romo’s insinuation that Brady should pimp out his wife.
She’s A Legend
Bundchen’s accomplishments can fill a Wikipedia page. In fact, they do. She’s won awards for philanthropy, and even represented her home country of Brazil at the Olympics opening ceremony. She’s every bit as accomplished as Brady, just in different fields. Romo’s joke relegated her to the level of one of Brady’s Super Bowl rings. It was a dumb thing to say and made the whole league look bad.
They Don’t Seem To Care
That being said, it doesn’t look like Brady or Bundchen were offended at all. Neither has commented on Romo’s statement, so it doesn’t look like they care. Brady was just psyched to get the ball back, and tweeted “let’s get this guy a Bitcoin.” The fan was given a slew of autographed memorabilia, though the ball may have earned him over six figures.
Romo doesn’t engage with social media that much, so his silence is hardly damning or out of character. This joke was low-hanging fruit, but it would be rather shocking if it ended up haunting Romo in any way whatsoever.