William Eldridge "Bucky" Brooks Jr. (born January 22, 1971) is an American
sportswriter
Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on matters pertaining to sporting topics and competitions. Sports journalism has its roots in coverage of horse racing and boxing in the early 1800s, mainly targeted towards elites, and into t ...
and former professional
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
player. He played for five
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...
(NFL) teams in a five-year career, primarily as a
kick returner
A return specialist or kick returner is a player on the special teams unit of a gridiron football team who specializes in returning punts and kickoffs. There are few players who are exclusively return specialists; most also play another positio ...
. He was drafted in the second round of the
1994 NFL draft
The 1994 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 24–25, 1994, at the Marriott Ma ...
by the Buffalo Bills with the 48th overall pick.
Brooks is in his sixth season as an analyst for
NFL Network
NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League NTP and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and N ...
and
NFL.com. He contributes weekly columns, as well as video features including "Scout’s Take" and "On the Beat" on NFL.com, and offers interactive analysis on the latest NFL topics and headlines with weekly live online chats. He is currently the co-host on the podcast 'Move the Sticks', alongside
Daniel Jeremiah.
The two ex-scouts produce multiple podcasts each week during the NFL season and focus on topics such as NFL and NCAA game previews and reviews, and NFL Draft scouting. For the 2010 season, Brooks returned as an analyst for ''
Thursday Night Football
''Thursday Night Football'' (often abbreviated as ''TNF'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that broadcast primarily on Thursday nights. Most of the games kick off at 8:15 Eastern Time (8:20 prior to ...
'', NFL.com's in-game coverage of the Network's eight live, regular season game broadcasts. NFL.com/LIVE: Thursday Night Football presents a live show throughout the game including “live look ins” of the game, reports from the field and highlights. He is also a frequent guest on NFL.com's
Dave Dameshek Football Program podcast, appearing approximately once per week to discuss the
NFL Draft
The NFL draft, officially known as the Annual Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the most common source of player recruitment in the National Football League. Each team is given a position in the drafting order in reve ...
and various
listicle
In journalism and blogging, a listicle is an article that is structured as a list, which is often fleshed out with additional text relating to each item. A typical listicle will have a title describing a specific number of items contained within, a ...
s created for NFL.com.
In the 2024 pre-season, Brooks has also been a commentator for the Jacksonville Jaguars TV Network.
References
External links
NFL.com player page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brooks, Bucky
1971 births
Living people
African-American sportswriters
American football return specialists
American sports podcasters
Buffalo Bills players
Green Bay Packers players
Jacksonville Jaguars players
Kansas City Chiefs players
Millbrook High School (North Carolina) alumni
NFL announcers
NFL Network people
North Carolina Tar Heels football players
Oakland Raiders players
Players of American football from Raleigh, North Carolina
Sportswriters from North Carolina
Jacksonville Jaguars announcers