Tom Brady farewell tour is turning into a train wreck for Tampa Bay Buccaneers | Opinion
stumbling in stunning fashion at Carolina, losing, 21-3, Brady is under .500 through seven games for the first time since 2002. That’s some desperate stuff for a Tampa Bay Buccaneers squad that is supposed to be in the lineup of Super Bowl contenders.
Sure, there’s still time for corrections. The NFL’s season hasn’t hit the halfway point and the Bucs (3-4) are still holding down first place, barely, in the NFL’s worst division. We can’t forget the times Brady got clobbered in early season contests – the post-Lawyer Milloy debacle and a beatdown in KC are two cases from his Patriots reign that come to mind – and still wound up hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.
Brady, or TB12 in marketing terms, has become a seven-ring icon because he’s defied odds and demonstrated resilience.
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Now let’s see if he can truly walk on water.
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A week after being upset by the 1-4 Pittsburgh Steelers, Brady Co. were upended by the 1-5 Carolina Panthers. Maybe it’s not time to panic, but it is clearly time to face up to desperation.
Consider how the first nine Bucs drives finished on Sunday: Punt. Punt. Punt. Punt. Halftime. Punt. Turnover on downs. Punt. Field goal.
throw a tablet.
Or go to the bench and cuss out the offensive line.
Oh, Brady has tried that in recent weeks and it hasn’t made much difference.
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Execution – not the type that former Bucs coach John McKay deadpanned about back in the day, silly – is the Football 101 theme that Brady went with on Sunday during his postgame news conference.
“It’s the NFL,” he said. “If you don’t execute your job well, it doesn’t matter who’s on the other side. It still comes down to the fundamentals of the sport – throwing and catching, blocking, tackling. All the fundamentals.”
Translation: Brady, 45, has to be so embarrassed to wind up on the wrong side of a quarterback matchup against backup P.J. Walker, a week after losing to a team quarterbacked by rookie Kenny Pickett and recently benched Mitchell Trubisky.
Next up, Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens in a primetime showcase on Thursday night.
then unretired 40 days later. His gritty, offensive-minded coach, Bruce Arians, retired and handpicked defensive coordinator Todd Bowles as his successor. Know, too, that with Arians stepping aside, the heat on Bowles and offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich has risen.
Add the absence of Gronkowski to the equation and it is undoubtedly a factor linked to the sorry red zone results (tied for 20th in the NFL after 6 weeks with a 50% TD rate) that have bogged down Brady. As good as wideout Mike Evans is, Gronk was only Brady’s premium security blanket near the goal line – and a threat that opened up room for the likes of Evans and Chris Godwin. And now he’s gone.
On top of that, the O-line has been in flux with three starters gone from last year’s unit, including Pro Bowl center Ryan Jensen, who went down early in training camp with a serious knee injury and has yet to return.
Then it became much more dramatic. Brady, as meticulous as they come, took a 12-day personal leave of absence from his training camp routine as reports swirled regarding the status of his marriage with supermodel Gisele Bündchen. In recent weeks, the reports have only intensified.