What is Tom Brady Thinking?

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

Yesterday Tom Brady announced he was moving on from the Patriots. I talked about my feelings on this, and went through some of his options, and where New England goes from here. I also said that once he picked a team I would write about his decision, and my thoughts on that.

Well, about an hour after my piece posted, it was reported that Brady was planning on signing with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They were one of two teams that was mentioned most as a destination for Brady. I said in my piece yesterday that they have some of the best wide outs, young too, that Brady will ever play with. They also have a solid O line and an okay enough run game. But, I still stand by the fact that I think their defense is less than average, that Brady's arm is not equipped to throw the deep ball consistently, and that Tampa is not a Super Bowl contender, even with the addition of Brady.

People all over sports media were losing their minds when this happened yesterday, and I assume rightfully so. Brady is the best QB ever, the receiving corps is ridiculously good and the line will protect him. But, Brady is going to be 43 years old, and did no one watch his play kind of slide at the end of the season last year? Also, I saw someone say that Ronald Jones is a "weapon". While I think he is a solid back, he is not in the upper echelon of running backs. I don't know that he is any better than who the Patriots, or the Chargers, the other teams that had a shot at signing Brady, have at running back. Honestly, I think Sony Michel is better, and he is younger.

I can't help myself, but I keep going back to that defense. Yes, they have the sack leader from last season in Barrett coming back on a franchise tag. They resigned Jason Pierre Paul, and he is a solid D lineman. But who else do they have on that side of the ball? Ndamukong Suh is more of a name than a disruptive player at this point. Vita Vea is still very green. The secondary is filled with guys that haven't proven a thing. The linebackers, outside of Barrett, are very so so. I don't have a ton of faith in the defense doing enough to push this team far in the playoffs. I do think they have a shot at the playoffs with Brady, and that offense, but that defense is going to give up gobs of points, and that means Brady will be forced to throw a ton. And that is fine when you have guys like Chris Godwin, OJ Howard and Mike Evans. They are going to give opposing teams coaches headaches trying to figure out how to cover them with Brady throwing to them now. I mean, Jameis Winston had a career year with these guys, and Tom Brady is much, much, much better than Winston. But, he is also much, much, much older than Winston, and doesn't have the arm.

I am sure people will throw the fact that Bruce Arians is a QB whisperer, and he did wonders with Carson Palmer in Arizona, but two things need to be said about that. One, Palmer, while older, was still I his thirties when he signed with Arizona. And two, and I know I keep going to this, he always had a stronger arm than Brady. Palmer thrived in a deep ball offense. This is no offense to Brady. I don't know how many more times I can call him the greatest to ever play his position before people stop calling me a hater. But, he is old, he has always been much better at underneath routes, he is immobile and he is very set in his ways. The only time he ever had to throw deep was when the Patriots signed Randy Moss, but that was over a decade ago, and Randy Moss is way better than any receiver the Bucs have right now could wish to ever be in their careers. Also, while I think Rob Gronkowski is wildly overrated, OJ Howard hasn't proved yet to be a real threat at his position.

I am still puzzled by all of this. I, honestly, don't get his decision. This is going to be so much harder for him than it has been for the past 20 seasons. He is used to winning a very easy division. He now has to face Matt Ryan, Teddy Bridgewater, and Drew Brees eight times next season. They will try and keep up with the scoring, but I think he will find it much tougher sledding than anything he has faced in his career. The Falcons and Panthers may not be as good, but they will score points. The Saints should've played in the Super Bowl two years ago, they blew it this year, but their offense is better than Tampa's, and their defense is light years ahead of Tampa's. Finally, it is going to be so god damn weird to see him in that jersey. It is going to take awhile for all of us football fans to adjust.

This decision is one of the wilder, and more confusing ones I have ever witnessed in super star sports figures making at the end of their careers. This ranks right up there, for me, with MJ joining the Wizards and Ichiro Suzuki going to play for the Marlins. I will be curious to see if he has a better ending than those guys did, but I doubt it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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