It was fitting that his performance in the booth Sunday played out in a similar pattern.

Brady, programmed as a player to politely say nothing of substance, often this season leaned on couched, vague criticisms or recurring platitudes in circumstances that called for candor.

So it was a pleasant surprise late in the fourth quarter, with nothing left to decide other that when exactly Eagles players would dump the traditional celebratory Gatorade bucket on coach Nick Siranni, when Brady opened up and became as interesting as he has been all season after recognizing the disappointment on Mahomes’s face.

“I think about, unfortunately, the three losses more than I think about the seven wins,” said Brady. “The reality of a loss in this game is you don’t ever get over them.”

Brady stumbled through a couple of clichés — “there’s no two ways about it” and “it’s the highest of the highs … and unfortunately, the lowest of the lows” — before sharing the kind of insightful anecdote we hoped to hear more of this season, and hopefully will in the future should he fulfill his vow to remain with Fox even though he is a limited partner with the Raiders.

“I remember when we lost to the Giants in 2007 … I absolutely believed 100 percent we were going to win,” he said. “It was just devastating because I couldn’t speak for the rest of the night.”

Brady then revealed that when he’d wake up in the morning after a Super Bowl loss, he always at first thought he was awakening from a nightmare before realizing it was reality. It was the perfect way to help viewers comprehend the anguish of pending defeat Mahomes was feeling. I suppose it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that it took a scene from late in a Super Bowl for Brady to be able to convey a real connection to the circumstances.

Brady’s best moments — as fleeting as they may have been — usually came when something offended his sensibilities, or he was identifying why a quarterback was or wasn’t succeeding.

When Eagles receiver A.J. Brown was called for offensive pass interference, negating a fourth-down catch on the game’s first possession, Brady didn’t hedge in disagreeing with the call.

“Oh, I don’t like that one bit,” he said.

When Chiefs cornerback Trent McDuffie was flagged for unnecessary roughness later in the first quarter, Brady said, “I don’t like that one, either.”

Brady also disagreed with this call against the Chiefs.

“I don’t like that one, either…Look, I was on the end of the Tuck Rule and I was glad Twitter wasn’t around then.”pic.twitter.com/sYunedbrZN

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 10, 2025

After the Eagles sacked Mahomes — whom Brady usually referred to as “Patrick,” to some correspondents’ annoyance — on consecutive plays midway through the second quarter, Brady spotted a detail that revealed Mahomes’s shrinking faith in his offensive line.

“I can just tell by Patrick’s feet he doesn’t have 100 percent confidence in this protection right now,” said Brady. “They’re kind of moving all over the place. Nor should he have a ton of confidence. [Chiefs lineman Mike] Caliendo in there can’t deal with [Eagles linebacker Jalyx] Hunt.”

With the Chiefs facing a stunning 24-0 deficit at halftime, Brady — who, as you, me, and Arthur Blank recall brought the Patriots back from a 28-3 hole in an eventual overtime victory over the Falcons in Super Bowl LI — was the perfect person to discuss how Mahomes and the Chiefs should navigate the situation.

“In a lot of ways, KB,” said Brady to Burkhardt with just under 4 minutes left in the second quarter, “I would like to see them pretend the game is 3-0,” adding the Chiefs shouldn’t abandon their offensive game plan just yet.

When the Eagles lead ballooned to 34-0, Brady continued to preach patience, albeit with his most perplexing verbal misstep of the night.

“If you’re Patrick, you’re just staying with your, you can’t do anything inhuman,” he said. “And we’ve seen him do a lot of things in his career that are a bit inhuman.”

Inhuman? I mean, most of Mahomes’s commercials are atrocious, sure, but inhuman seems a reach. Gotta suspect Brady was going for “superhuman” there.

He never had a hard time embodying that adjective in his previous job, but he couldn’t quite find it Sunday.

Chad Finn can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @GlobeChadFinn.