Rookie broadcaster Tom Brady knows he can’t criticize individual quarterbacks without creating hard feelings from the players, their families, and their friends. That won’t stop him from generally criticizing quarterback play — especially when it comes to young quarterbacks.
During his recent conversation with Stephen A. Smith at the Fanatics Fan Fest, Brady bemoaned the game being “dumbed down” for rookie quarterbacks.
“I think it’s just a tragedy that we’re forcing these rookies to play early,” Brady said, via SportingNews.com. “But the reality is the only reason why they are is that we’ve dumbed the game down, which has allowed them to play.”
(A tragedy? Apparently, they also dumbed down English class when he was at Michigan.)
Brady then said this, which frankly makes no sense to me, no matter how many times I read it (I even tried reading it backwards): “We used to spend hours and hours in the offseason, in training camp, trying to be a little bit better the next year. But I think what happens is it discourages the coaches from going to deep levels because they realize the players don’t have the opportunity to go to a deep level, so they’re just going to teach them where they’re at.”
He also threw in a back-in-my-day-style lamentation regarding college football.
“There used to be college programs,” Brady said. “Now, there are college teams. You’re no longer learning a program, you’re learning a playbook. . . .
“For five years, I got to learn how to drop-back pass, to read defenses, to read coverages, to be coached. I had to learn from being seventh quarterback on the depth chart to moving up to third to ultimately being a starter. I had to learn all those things in college. That was development.”
Right, and college teams used to be able to stockpile quarterbacks and “develop” them with no promise they’d ever play, since the transfer rules were stacked against the players.
News flash, Tommy. Football is different now. You might think it’s worse. Some might think it’s better. Either way, it’s different. And the best of the best find a way to adapt and adjust to the way things are.
In the old days, NFL coaches expected players to learn the system. Nowadays, NFL coaches adapt the system to the things the players do well. Is that worse, or is that better? (Many would say it’s better.)
C.J. Stroud played extremely well as a rookie last year. If the Houston offense was “dumbed down” to allow that, wouldn’t NFL-caliber defenses have easily cracked the code before the end of the season?
It seems as if Brady knows he’s going to be watching film of guys who aren’t as good as him, even now. And since he can’t say “this guy sucks” specifically, he’s basically saying “they all suck generally, but it’s not their fault; the game has been dumbed down.”
Hey, whatever he has to do to deal with the fact that he’s getting $37.5 million to call games when he could be getting that much or more to play in them. And he still could. Maybe the habit of studying bad quarterback play but not being able to say “this quarterback is bad” will drive him sufficiently nutty that he unretires to play for the Raiders, or someone else.
If not, he needs to get used to it. No one wants to hear a broadcaster say, “This is how we used to to it, and it was better.” No matter how many rings he won doing what he used to do.