When Tom Brady said that there’s “a lot of mediocrity” in today’s NFL, some were confused and debated his point.
The Patriots icon further explained what he meant in the latest episode of his “Let’s Go!” podcast, focusing more on the inability of quarterbacks to read defenses and check out of plays at the line of scrimmage. As Brady was discussing how well of a game the Eagles’ overtime win over the Bills was, Jim Gray (one of Brady’s co-hosts) asked him why we don’t see as many games as intense or as well-played as that one, calling back to Brady’s “mediocrity” comment.
“I think the point is, you want to see the game continue to grow and evolve,” Brady said. “That means better coaching, better quarterback play, and better defensive playcalling. I think a big difference too is the lack of time that coaches have with players, coaches have together in the building, people don’t understand the full picture a lot of the time.”
As Brady said that players at most positions only need to know how to do a few things well, he explained that quarterbacks “need to know what everyone is doing.” But he doesn’t think quarterbacks in the league now necessarily know as much as they should, placing some of the blame on coaches because they’re trying to “control the game from the sideline.”
“When you try to control the game from the sideline, you don’t have the answer for everything that’s happening on the field,” Brady said. “Ultimately, as a quarterback, I had all the things at my disposal to get us into a good play. … I had the ability to change the play to get us to a play that I thought would be more successful.
“I just don’t see as much of that in the NFL,” Brady added. “There’s a lot less time that people are spending on it. That’s just the reality. When I started, there was a lot more time we spent on it. Over those years, I developed a lot of those tools in my arsenal to get us into the best play.”
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Brady said that his ability to check out of bad plays at the line of scrimmage helped him win Super Bowls and made other quarterbacks, such as Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and Philip Rivers, great. Now, he thinks that only Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford, and maybe a couple of other quarterbacks have the ability to check plays at the line of scrimmage.
Brady laid blame on the constant pressures of getting things right in the league for the lack of quarterbacks in the league today who are able to check out of plays at the line scrimmage, saying “in an effort to get it right, people are actually getting it more wrong.” As he thinks it’s particularly affecting young quarterbacks, he recalled that being able to spend time with the Patriots’ coaching staff during the offseason helped him check out of a play that led to an overtime win over the Chargers in his third career start.
“We were talking about how they were going to max blitz us,” Brady said. “We said, ‘OK, if they max blitz us and they get us in that look, we’ve got to check the protection to a seven-man protection, and let’s get the receiver a shot down the field.’ [They said that] to a second-year quarterback!
“I was in the system my whole first year. I was being taught by Bill Belichick and Charlie Weis. We had quarterbacks school and the offseason program. We get into overtime after going the full 60 minutes and I recognized they called this all-out blitz. I said, ‘[Expletive] this, I’m changing it.’ I changed the protection, I threw a deep ball to David Patten, pass interference and we got a 50-yard gain. We win the game on a field goal in overtime.”
Instead of seeing quarterbacks doing what he did at the line of scrimmage throughout his whole career, Brady believes there are too many quarterbacks and teams being “reactive” and trying to fix problems after the snap.
“The more you can be decisive as a quarterback, the better outcomes you’re going to have, the better your process is going to be,” Brady said. “You want to be really decisive as a quarterback. You want to be really sure of what you’re doing. But you need to be sure of the gameplan, the protections, who’s responsible for who if they blitz, and where all of the receivers are going. All of that takes time. We’ve got to allow these guys time to develop.
“The pro game is reflecting what the college game is as opposed to the college game reflecting what the pro game is,” Brady added. “We’re asking pro players to play college football. That’s the biggest difference I see. It’s way more checkers than it is chess. I tried to play chess. I wanted to have three moves ahead of you at all times.”
Subtext: Brady checked out of a lot of shit McDaniels play calls.
McDaniels takes all the credit when brady audibled out of a train wreck, but blamed brady anytime a play fell apart instantly
He saw the 50th screen that quarter and said no sir
McDaniels called both plays. If Brady didn’t like the look, he checked to the second play. The idea that QBs can audible into any play at the line of scrimmage at any time is essentially a myth. (It does happen on rare occasions)
As disgusting as it is to say/think; the longer Brady has been away from all these “guru” coaches, the more I think they were all carried by this one dude that transcended the position and sport.
I think Purdy is playing Chess though since the Shanny system is complex I hear.
“When you try to control the game from the sideline, you don’t have the answer for everything that’s happening on the field."
That’s the Shanny system to a T - beat you with gameplanning and holding a lead/controlling the ball. Works great when things go to plan, but if a player goes out or if they have to improvise in the 4th it doesn’t look as good. Purdy can execute it better than Jimmy G, but it’s still the same system and Shanny is still in control from the sidelines, which is what Brady was talking about
The NFLPA limiting the amount of offseason practices and full practices that teams can have is doing a huge disservice to the game and isn’t talked about enough. It seems very obvious that many of these teams just don’t seem properly coached.
lol and people were worried about Brady broadcasting career. Clearly Brady is able to do it and will be sharing his wealth of knowledge of the game to the audience during games.
Getting better at anything is mostly about finding ways to make it easier. NFL coaches have learned how to make QB easier and have expanded the pool of available QBs as a result. This isn’t checkers it’s just a normal evolution of anything.
It’s not about making things more complicated, it’s about finding out how to make it less while still doing the things you need to do to be successful. That’s what improvement is on a meta scale.
He’s not wrong. I don’t think Lamar could do checks like that until this year when we got Monken
I think something interesting is him talking about how much time he spent with coaches learning the skill. The current NFL landscape is so sink or swim I feel like it’s a lot harder for QBs to build a rapport with their coaches to where you’re learning this stuff. If the offense isn’t succeeding the first year you usually either have a head coach/OC, player, or position coach getting canned.
Obviously doesn’t apply in all scenarios and some firings are deserved, but everyone wants success now that I feel like a lot of these skills just aren’t being given time to develop. Like a lot of people forget elite QBs like Mahomes and Hurts sat most of their first years. Nowadays we’re calling people like Bryce Young a bust because he’s doing bad starting from day 1.
So Brady mentions 4 QBs from his era that benefitted from being able to check out of plays, and mentions close to the same number today that do it.
Jeff Garcia, Mark Sanchez, Tim Tebow, and Jason Campbell weren’t checking out of plays. So yeah, elite QBs understand the game well enough to get trust from their HC to check their own plays. Nothing has changed.
This really sounds more like a guy ranting that no one wants to work anymore and the new generation are lazy and dumb more than anything else.
The game changes 🤷♂️ I really don’t see anything wrong with that.
I see where he’s coming from, but this sounds like a vision a head coach has for his team. Maybe he can get the chance to enact it. But until then, it does feel a little like “old man yells at clouds”.
Anticipate, don’t improvise.
So Tom’s coming back as a coach right becomes patriots OC then takes over for Belichick then Kraft gifts him the team when he dies for being the son he never had
As Brady was discussing how well of a game the Eagles’ overtime win over the Bills was
Surely this has to be intentional… right? Right?? “How well of a game it was”??
I feel like this starts at the college level. You rarely see college QBs changing plays. They give a hard count then everyone looks to the sideline to get the updated call from the coaches. Then they get to the pros and they haven’t developed any of those improve/checkout mental muscles.
i love this man
I blame YouTube and ESPN. Everyone wants the highlights and goes big play, especially the young Aqaba, I see it in college a lot as well as pros, check down guy is open, fuck that, yeet!
Three yard dump and runs is just as sexy as a 50 yard bomb to the win column.
They should officially be known as a Twitter QB, or tik tok QB.