The last playoff game of 2022 wild-card weekend will be Tom Brady’s 48th and, in theory, his last.
First-year head coach Todd Bowles isn’t thinking of it that way.
“I didn’t think about that in 2020, I didn’t think about that in 2021 and I’m not thinking about that this year,” Bowles told reporters on Wednesday. “I’m trying to stay focused – we’re trying to stay focused and make the main thing the main thing. Right now, we have a really good football team that we’ve got to play Monday night that we’ve got to get ready for. We’ll worry about that when we need to worry about that – right now, we need to worry about the Cowboys. It’s a good football team that we’re about to play [so] we’ve got to get ready.”
Bowles is right; there’s nothing else to do. Besides, Brady is facing two very different questions. One, whether to keep playing. Two, whether to keep playing for the Buccaneers.
There’s a chance that the answers to those questions will be: (1) yes; and (2) no.
Regardless, Bowles is properly focused on the task at hand. That’s all any coach can ever do, or should ever do.
