Despite FOX’s tight restrictions and monitoring of everything Terry Bradshaw says on air, the Hall of Famer still made a bold appearance on Morning Mayhem. On the podcast, he pushed back, openly challenging the network’s grip on his voice, for the first time perhaps.

“Can you believe this, FOX? They listen to absolutely everything I say on the radio and everything I put in print,” Bradshaw said on the Morning Mayhem podcast.

“And just this week, they told me, ‘You’ve got to stay away from this.’ (I won’t say it again because I don’t want to be quoted.) ‘You’ve got to stay away from this. You’ve got to stay away from that.’”

Bradshaw has been a mainstay on FOX NFL Sunday since the show’s inception in 1994. Front Office Sports reported that the broadcasting giant appears “reluctant” to share their top broadcasters like Tom Brady and Kevin Burkhardt with any other competitors.

Well, one of the major reasons for Terry not abiding by the strict ban of Fox might be the network’s own contradicting decision to allow Drew Brees to commentate on Netflix’s Christmas Day games while still blocking Bradshaw and Michael Strahan from doing similar assignments.

David Bazzel, the host of the radio station, responded to the ban by saying;

“You should say what you want. You’re 77 years old. You’re one of the greatest players of all time. They should be lucky you’re still hanging around. So, that’s just my point.”

Surely enough, Terry Bradshaw’s contribution was a big win for the network, as he became an essential part of the country’s most popular NFL pregame show. FOX NFL Sunday was first aired in September 1994, and for the past 31 years, it has been the most-watched NFL pregame show every single season.

Considering how much sports media changes, this consistent success is quite remarkable. Speaking about the last season, the show, featuring a cast including Curt Menefee, Howie Long, Jimmy Johnson, Michael Strahan, Rob Gronkowski, Jay Glazer, and Bradshaw, finished the 2024 regular season with a strong average of 4.4 million viewers each week. 

FOX NFL Sunday co-host responds to Terry Bradshaw’s retirement rumors

Curt Menefee, the host of Fox NFL Sunday, recently spoke to the Daily Mail about whether his co-host, Terry Bradshaw, might retire soon. Bradshaw was absent from the show earlier this season, to be specific, in the month of November during week 11, because he was sick due to a cold. But his absence stirred a buzz online. 

“It’s never gonna happen! They’re going to be carrying him out in a hearse — he is not leaving the show,” Menefee pointed out that Bradshaw is the foundation of the show.

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“It was built around him [Bradshaw] — he was the first guy they hired… He was the first guy on air for this network,” Menefee continued. “I don’t think he’s ever, ever going to leave. And nor should he. He is the heart and soul of everything we do at Fox Sports.”

This isn’t the first time Bradshaw’s retirement has been discussed. The topic came out earlier when he beat bladder cancer and a rare Merkel cell skin cancer in his neck in the year 2021 and 2022, but his absence this season brought up the topic again.

Earlier this year, at Super Bowl LIX, Bradshaw had mentioned he thought he had “two years left at Fox.” He is currently 77 and said, “It’s a young man’s game.”

However, Bradshaw later changed his tune. Even though his current contract with Fox Sports is set to expire in about two years, meaning it is expected to run through the end of the 2026 season, and he has publicly acknowledged this timeline during media appearances in 2025; he has also expressed a desire to remain on the network potentially through the next Super Bowl broadcast Fox holds, scheduled for 2029.