Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Roast Of Tom Brady’ On Netflix, Where Football Greats Stepped Way Out Of Bounds To Keep Up With Comedians Zinging The NFL G.O.A.T.

We’re used to NFL games lasting three hours or more, but a three-hour comedy roast? And it’s going to air around the world live? Who’s crazier for this decision: Netflix, or Tom Brady for agreeing to get roasted by his former teammates, coach, and a handful of comedians?

THE ROAST OF TOM BRADY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Billed beforehand as “The Greatest Roast of All Time,” Kevin Hart presided over this live affair in front of a sold-out crowd of mostly New England Patriots fans packed into the Kia Forum in Los Angeles to watch Tom Brady, the retired record-setting quarterback with seven Super Bowl rings to his credit, get roasted by Hart and comedians such as Jeff Ross, Nikki Glaser, Bert Kreischer and Tom Segura, Sam Jay, Andrew Schulz, Tony Hinchcliffe, plus Will Ferrell as “Ron Burgundy,” plus former Patriots teammates Julian Edelman, Rob Gronkowski and Randy Moss, plus his former coach Bill Belichick, as well as the likes of Kim Kardashian and UFC founder Dana White, just to mix it up even more. Even Patriots owner Robert Kraft got into it. And for an added surprise before Brady got the last laugh, we were treated to an appearance by Brady’s biggest on-field rival, Peyton Manning.

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: It has been a few years since the last Comedy Central Roast, but none of those ever got broadcast live to a global audience with no bleeps or commercials. Netflix previously produced a roast of the Jonas Brothers, but this is nowhere near as tame as that was.

Memorable Jokes: With three hours there’s a lot to choose from.

Sure, plenty of jokes covered familiar themes to fans of Brady and/or the Patriots, including the Spygate and Deflategate scandals on the field, or Brady’s off-field troubles getting divorced from Gisele Bündchen and getting involved hawking a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme.

But there were significantly funny original takes, too. Nikki Glaser hit two future NFL Hall of Famers with one quip: “Tom also lost $30 million in crypto. Tom, how did you fall for that? I mean, even Gronk was like: ‘Me know that not real money.’” Sam Jay made Brady’s QB predecessor, Drew Bledsoe, feel super bad for his Super Bowl ring by joking: “The only ring you have is the one Tom won for you. So your Super Bowl ring is just like my strap-on. Just because you wear it doesn’t make it real.”

Former Patriot Julian Edelman shocked everyone with this barb about Jeff Ross: “Fun fact: Jeff and I are both Jewish. The difference is I’m the kind of Jew that people look and go, ‘Oh, he’s Jewish?’ And Jeff’s the kind of Jew that makes you want to join Hamas.” 

Kim Kardashian almost got booed out of the building, while UFC founder Dana White didn’t like the lack of support for his trans and gay jokes. Tony Hinchcliffe fared much better by making fun of Jay after praising her performance, describing Jay as “an obese African-American lesbian. So by having her, Netflix checked off a lot of boxes. She’s a black lesbo, which means she doesn’t eat pussy, she aw hell (g)naws on it.”

Pats owner Robert Kraft, who gave one of his Super Bowl rings away to a certain Russian dictator in 2005, declared: “In case Vladimir Putin, you’re watching, give me my fucking ring back, will ya!?”

And for his part, Brady boasted he could’ve copped to Deflategate for the right price, made fun of Belichick even after doing shots with him onstage, and even somehow managed to land a 9/11 joke thanks to a bit of misdirection.

Our Take: Hart wondered at the start of the roast why Brady said yes to this in the first place. “What an idiot! Why would you do this? What an idiot!”

There’s a reason you probably cannot recall ever seeing a comedy roast on live TV before this. Comedy Central’s roasts lasted about an hour to 90 minutes, two hours tops, but those telecasts included commercial breaks, bleeps to censor language, and sometimes heavy editing to take out any moments that dragged or went too far over the line or perhaps shouldn’t be shared for public consumption.

So this was an unprecedented event. And with so many non-comedians taking part, it presented even greater risks in terms of presenting comedy that’s actually funny and not just pure raunch, filth, or offensive innuendos. Not that any of those elements should come as a surprise in a roast format. But when it’s coming from athletes instead of comedians, it may come across not so much as polished punchlines but rather as that “locker-room talk” that former presidents like to claim as comedy but is all whoa, very little ha-ha-ha.

Then again, Netflix did try presenting a more family-friendly version of the format in 2021 with The Jonas Brothers Family Roast, and those watered-down insults that sometimes didn’t even feel like insults represented the other comedy extreme, where you’re telling us it’s a roast only to serve up undercooked dish.

You might love one Netflix variation or the other, but probably not both. Or you might be like me and think there’s a third way to film a comedy roast that’s just right. I’d be willing to give Netflix the chance to go for it. But I’m still not sure that streaming it live is the best way to go.

Our Call: If you didn’t watch it live, then please let me save you some trouble. If you’re not a big Brady fan or a Patriots fan, then the three hours will feel like a slog. But if you’re a fan, then I don’t need to tell you to STREAM IT. I just wish that Netflix would also put out an edited pared-down version of this roast, just the highlights like you might’ve watched on ESPN or the NFL Network after the big game.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.