Tom Brady put on his professor’s coat Sunday to give fans watching at home a lesson in physics.
The quarterback-turned-announcer was on the call during the Wild Card matchup between the San Francisco 49ers and Philadelphia Eagles. The weather during the contest was far from the norm at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pa.
The wind clearly affected play on the field, with recorded gusts of up to 40 miles per hour. FOX had Brady do a segment wherein he explained how a QB has to adjust to winds knocking any ball off its intended path.
“I talk about the point of the ball a lot,” Brady said while holding a football for the camera to see. “You see it from this angle. … When you’re throwing into the wind, the ball has to be neutral. If the point of the ball is up, any wind friction is going to push that ball up over the top.
“As a quarterback, you don’t really like that ‘U’ throw underneath,” Brady added as he made a letter ‘U’ with his hand while grasping the football. “Because, naturally, that’s going to point the tip of the ball up. You’d like more of a ‘C’ or a reverse ‘C’. That’s how you control the point of the ball, and you just snap it off as as you throw it.
“In these windy conditions, you can’t be underneath the ball. There’s too much wind surface of the ball to knock it off its path.”
Professor Tom Brady teaching how to throw the ball in the wind 💯
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Brady’s a seven-time Super Bowl winner for a reason. In a sport often decided by razor-thin margins, a strong gust of wind could be the difference between a successful touchdown pass and an interception.
The wind went in San Francisco’s favor during Sunday’s Wild Card contest. The 49ers edged out the Eagles 23-19, perhaps thanks to Brock Purdy throwing better inverted “C” throws into the wind than Jalen Hurts did.
