Tom Brady: We’d Love To Throw The Ball Less
September 12th, 2022
Bucs playcaller Byron Leftwich
The Bucs may have the most talented receiving corps in history and Tom Brady came to Tampa to throw the rock in a no-risk-it, no-biscuit offense.
But perhaps something has changed.
After the Bucs’ dismantling of the Cowboys last night, Brady was asked whether the Bucs handing off 31 times was a byproduct of the Todd Bowles influence as new head coach.
Brady paused and had an awkward six-second pause before answering.
“Not sure, not sure,” Brady eventually replied. “I mean, look, I think we’d love to throw the ball less and control the game and run the ball and play great defense and get turnovers, and don’t turn it over and score in the red area.”
Then Brady rolled into clichés about the offense needing to get on the same page before moving on to a new subject.
Joe was very intrigued to hear Brady talk about wanting to throw the ball less. Really? With Julio Jones, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Russell Gage? That may be the best foursome of receivers in NFL history.
This is the same Brady who talked about the Bucs’ “favorable passing conditions” a few months ago.
Perhaps something changed in Brady when Ryan Jensen got hurt, or when Rob Gronkowski retired. Maybe his assessment of the Bucs — and his health maintenance — is that they need to pound the rock to get through the season in the best shape for the postseason?
September 12th, 2022 at 12:48 am
Yes, health maintenance would be not having him throw 45x a game. As Bowles said, Brady’s happy with throwing it 60x or throwing it 60x a game if need be. As long as we win, that’s all that matters. Bowles is smart to not having him throw so much with that depleted OL.
September 12th, 2022 at 12:48 am
No problem with a more balanced offense. Let our defense win a few games and preserve Brady’s arm. It also opens up the play action pass and keeps defenders from teeing off
September 12th, 2022 at 12:48 am
If we can consistently run the ball we will be VERY hard to beat. Running obviously opens up the passing game.
We NEED to be a balanced Offense. We had those games last year when the passing game got shutdown by some teams and we had no solid rushing attack to fall back on.
It will be IDEAL if we can become a run-first team.
September 12th, 2022 at 12:48 am
not socring was frustrating. but Joe, dont tell me youre complaining about the way our offense looked today? I loved our play calling today
September 12th, 2022 at 12:49 am
Gage did absolutely nothing tonight. I’m not sure you can include him. Brady surely didn’t mention him in his press conference when praising the receivers.
September 12th, 2022 at 12:55 am
Every tam would love to control the game on the ground if they could. When the ground game is working, your chances of winning go way up. And you pick and choose when and where you throw the ball. Maybe it’s not what the fans want to see, but it wins. The problem is when your ground game is getting stuffed and you don’t know when to shift gears. I don’t have any concern about the passing game putting up big numbers. It wasn’t necessary tonight.
September 12th, 2022 at 1:01 am
I think we could have fewer first and second down runs. Don’t throw Leftwich under the bus. He was obviously directed to run the ball. Bowles said as much during an interview with the sideline reporter during the game.
September 12th, 2022 at 1:05 am
I’ve been beating this drum for awhile. We need to protect our 45 year old QB that isn’t good with taking hits. We’d beat the Rams last year if we stuck with the run
September 12th, 2022 at 1:19 am
Common sense. Banged up oline and WRs. And it’s not like the Bucs became the Army Black Knights.
Win the damn game. When we can more reliably pass block for Tom, we will throw more. Tonight’s mix was perfect. Obviously.
September 12th, 2022 at 2:01 am
This game was smart and businesslike, and it did not hurt that the Cowboys have their own issues and currently aren’t a great team.
There were plenty of issues to work on, evidenced by only 19 points, missed opportunities. Evans was the safety blanket tonight.
Emphasizing more run plays to strengths of the younger guys and hides their pass blocking issues, and should be the priority. Smashmouth keeps Brady safe. The question is if they can impose that consistently.
Losing D Smith adds a new problem. Wells is strictly a backup. The depth problem on the roster is too obvious now.
September 12th, 2022 at 2:47 am
@Steele. Wells is awful! You’re absolutely right. This is a better run blocking team right now. When Brady talked about those favorable passing conditions, it was when we had Jensen. He said it after Gronk left, so Gronk was never part of the equation. Teams will eventually catch on and go all out to stop the run, and then what? The next gen stats said we had the worst pass block rate of any team last year.
I will say in regards to our offense, we aren’t giving the dallas D enough credit, but this offense must play better next week, and Brady knows it.
September 12th, 2022 at 3:08 am
If you actually believe Brady wants to throw the ball less, you’re nuts. He knows he’s stuck with a dud of an OC and is trying to make the best of it.
September 12th, 2022 at 3:15 am
@Rod. You can’t blame Leftwich. Bowles directed him to run the ball more.
September 12th, 2022 at 3:40 am
brilliant strategy. Run game is the key to passing game
September 12th, 2022 at 5:36 am
The offense needs time to develop, so successful running is helpful for the long season.
September 12th, 2022 at 6:21 am
We had the ball for 33:42, an improvement on a lot of games last year
September 12th, 2022 at 6:40 am
Buc fans are the best. Even in a decisive victory some always fine reasons to whine about. The defense did what they couldn’t do last year, keep them out of the endzone.
September 12th, 2022 at 7:06 am
The most important stat (by far) in Brady’s mind is the number of Ws. So – whatever it takes to maximize that stat is OK with him.
September 12th, 2022 at 8:20 am
Loved it – when we went up 19 to 3…you could see that Dallas had no answers against our D…add in Oline injures and a 45yr old QB…no real reason to keep playing offense. Just pick up a 1st down or 2 and punt it deep.
Loved our physicality – the Saints and Rams seem to always over power us.
Heal, learn/get better, on to Week #2
GO BUCS!
September 12th, 2022 at 8:29 am
I said it last year.
If Leonard Fournette gets 20 carries per game, we are unbeatable.
Leonard could have an All-Pro season if he gets 20 carries per game, plus 5 catches per game.
Marshawn Lynch = Leonard Fournette.
Nobody wants to tackle them in the 4th quarter!
September 12th, 2022 at 8:31 am
Rod, the play calling seemed fine. Probably the most inconsistent on the offense last night our 3rd downs. Our 1st and 2nd downs were pretty darn good.
Here is a recap of all our 3rd downs IN THE 1ST HALF that DID NOT WORK:
3rd and 1 at Cowboys 25. Run play. Play designed to go behind Shaq Mason. Fournette choose not to take the gap and outside the tackle and lost 1/2 yard. If you want to blame OC then fine but Fournette made a poor read.
3rd and 5 at Dallas 20. Pass play. Brady goes after his 1st read Julio Jones. Jones well covered has a little space on his inside. Seems to slow to sit down in coverage. Brady throws as if he thinks Julio will continue to run full speed. Miscommunication between Brady and Julio. Certainly not OC fault.
3rd and 5 from Cowboys 9. Pass play. Michah Parsons sacks Brady. D Smith injured. Not sure how that play call was bad on the OC.
3rd down and 3 from the Dallas 4. Pass play. Michah Parsons sacks Brady. Brady yells as Hainsey for bad offensive line play call – not Josh Wells. Apparently, Hainsey called the wrong line protection. Not sure how that is on the OC. The center called the wrong protection. BTW, Brady continues to yell at Hainsey on the sideline.
3rd and 10 at Cowboys 29. Pass play. Only 3 receivers in the pattern. It appears they are in a more protect the QB mode based upon down and distance. Brady looks to his 2nd option Perriman. Throws an off-target pass. 3rd option Gage looked more open underneath. Again, do not see how that was the OC fault.
September 12th, 2022 at 8:43 am
As quite the departure from last year, it was nice to see the D was not gassed in the 4th qtr…
That is very important.
September 12th, 2022 at 10:20 am
Slow start from offense is to be expected they don’t really play in the preseason anymore to get up and running into the regular season happened to alot of teams this Sunday bucs are no exceptions. I expect them to break down film and fix things that need fixing will be better from here on out great win go bucs.
September 12th, 2022 at 12:38 pm
With a Patchwork Offensive line, running more makes sense. Otherwise Brady won’t make it 3 games this year. This Saints game will be tough. Their Defensive line always gets the best of our OLine. That’s a scary game for Brady
September 12th, 2022 at 2:55 pm
I don’t think anything changed. But if you’re running the ball well, you’re usually in control of the game so being ok with running more makes sense to me.
September 12th, 2022 at 4:04 pm
If you have a great defense, which the Bucs might, and you have a clutch offense, which you expect they will, AND you have a consistent running game, which.. remains to be seen, it’s an incredible show of power and a luxury to be able to be a “run first” offense”. But to do it well you can’t do what the Bucs did last night, which is run predictably on first down and set up endless 3rd downs, many of them long and let the defense pin its ears back to the QB, esp. when the strength of the D is the DL and rush. And you have to be able to run and convert in short yardage situations.
If the team uses play action more on first down and pass in general more on first down they will actually be able to mix in more running plays on the whole and take pressure off both the run game and the pass game, keeping the defense off balance and honest.
September 13th, 2022 at 2:13 pm
With the way our receiving corp gets knicked up and injured and the way they all seem to be voicing they will do anything the team meeds to win a ring, I can imagine they are hapoy to win games however that happens and those four plus receivers, can block or just be a decoy, “Just win baby!”
September 13th, 2022 at 8:04 pm
I think if everyone can stay healthy we may end up with the most dangerous offense we have ever had. Be great running the ball and great at passing as well means teams will have a very hard time stopping us. Load up to stop the run and it’s bombs away. Set back in 2 deep or a shell coverage and we run you out of the stadium. It may take some time and we may lose some games in route but by the playoffs no one will want to play us.