Tom Brady is the greatest football player of all time. There’s no debating this, especially not now, after his 22nd season. Career highs in attempts (719), passing yards (5,316), and this season’s touchdowns (43) and completion percentage (67.5%) were only eclipsed by his 2007 MVP season.
As great as he has been, his recently announced return doesn’t come with the promise of future greatness. In fact, Brady may be about to fall off a cliff due to a couple of key factors.
Offensive Line
While the Buccaneers just resigned Ryan Jensen, arguably the league’s top center, there are some questions regarding the offensive line. Ali Marpet just retired, and Alex Cappa is a free agent, so there are two holes on each hole alongside Jensen, and so far the solution has been to re-sign a backup guard. The Bucs have stars at Center and Right Tackle. Can they fit pieces in to plug at the other 3 positions to mesh well? We’ll find out.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme
Think back to 2009. Brett Favre is finally on a team that wasn’t green (nobody remembers his early Falcons days). It was a pretty striking image, seeing him in bright purple on the Vikings. Let’s use these years to compare to Brady’s Buc’s career, skipping the Jets because I, and the rest of history, would like to forget Favre’s Jets career. I listed out Brady’s accomplishments for his 2022 year, let’s list out some of Favre’s 2009 year. Career high in completion percentage (68.4%), QB rating (107.2), and top five in yardage (4,204) and touchdowns (33). Vikings were rolling with a young Adrian Peterson and a dominating Sydney Rice, with a Super Bowl well within their reach. Until that infamous cross body interception in the NFC Championship to the eventual Super Bowl champion Saints. If that throw doesn’t happen, maybe Favre beats Peyton two weeks later and he rides off into the sunset. The same could be said for Stafford’s late game heroics to Cooper Kupp. If Stafford doesn’t nail that throw to get them into field position and win, does Brady even think about unretiring with an 8th super bowl ring on his finger? I don’t think so. But he should look at every QB who has decided to put on the pads one last year, and the results don’t tend to be pretty.
Tom Brady may have outsmarted Father Time all of these years, but Father Time is a hurricane. And Tom, at this point in his career and life, seems to be trying to hold back the tide with a broomstick.
