Tom Brady: 600th TD Throw Wouldn’t Have Been Made 10 Years Ago
October 26th, 2021
Longing for the old days
The iconic moment during Sunday’s Bucs-Bears game — Tom Brady to Mike Evans for Brady’s 600th touchdown pass — wouldn’t have occurred if the NFL was still playing by its old rule of law.
That was the word from Brady himself last night on Let’s Go!, his SiriusXM podcast with Jim Gray.
Brady was ranting, as he has previously, about how the NFL has gotten soft because it’s tasking defensive players with protecting offensive receivers. Brady says that should be on quarterbacks, playcallers and the players themselves.
“Ten years ago I never would have thrown that football because Mike had caught the ball, the safety was standing right there and the safety essentially can’t hit him the way he used to be able to hit him,” Brady said. “Safeties now are all 200 pounds and they all cover. There’s no Rodney Harrison, there’s no Ronnie Lott.”
Joe’s got the video of the play below. Evans doesn’t get lit up like he would have if, say, Dashon Goldson was playing for the 2011 49ers. Brady is correct. The NFL has tweaked rules, which has led to safeties looking very different.
“Now, we’re taking physical players out of the game and now it’s a skills competition,” Brady said. “We still get beat up, we still get hit. It’s very different though in the fact that quarterbacks are throwing the balls in areas we shouldn’t throw it and they penalize defensive players for it. I said that before, you can’t penalize a defensive player for doing his job. I think [that’s] an aspect they should think about how that impacts things going forward or else it turns into 7-on-7 football.”
Joe would love to read a book penned by Brady, “How To Fix The NFL.” When it comes to changing the game, he speaks with such ease.
Brady also ranted about young quarterbacks he sees running up the middle of the defense and defenders scared to hit them. Mr. Seven Rings thinks that degrades the game.
6️⃣0️⃣0️⃣
📺: #CHIvsTB on CBS pic.twitter.com/HWHO0lqJvK
— Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@Buccaneers) October 24, 2021
October 26th, 2021 at 2:43 pm
Tom Brady is right, they have pussified the game!
October 26th, 2021 at 2:47 pm
Brady has a good point… 10 years ago, Evans would have been broken in two by the safety on that play.
October 26th, 2021 at 2:57 pm
is true TB12 said that:
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“Playing defense is like a dog chasing a car?!”
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im trying to grasp the joke… i can’t. Why is he going there???!!!!
Still D can hurt you… ask Gronk.
October 26th, 2021 at 3:04 pm
Like Floyd Peterson said back in the day
Football is turning into basketball on grass.
That NFL helmet commercial claiming the helmets designs have resulted in XXX fewer concussions/ injuries is exactly why you have to listen and think for yourself. True that the helmets are probably safer, but the rule changes have probably contributed more than the helmets.
Gawd old school defense was brutally tough!
October 26th, 2021 at 3:07 pm
I was talking to a slightly younger Bucs fan about Dashon Goldson on Sunday. “Yeah, this dude didn’t know how to wrap up his tackle. He hit so hard that players just went down. No need to form tackle, he just knocked the crap out of them. But it stunk too, because we weren’t always able to watch him play since he kept getting suspended for doing the thing you enjoyed watching him do.”
He joined the NFL about 10 years too late.
October 26th, 2021 at 3:08 pm
If they were still playing football “the old-school way” Tom Brady would definitely not be playing right now. Anyone whining about the game being “pussified” just doesn’t understand the big picture.
October 26th, 2021 at 3:19 pm
Rodney Harrison and Ronnie Lott could lay the wood for sure, but they could cover too! I’d contend that the Dashon Gholdsons of the world could hit but eventually proved unable to cover. Whitehead is a guy looking like he can do both and has become a strength of our current secondary.
Now most college players are typically going for the hit and never wrapping up Bad tackling, generally with limited exceptions, in college translates even worse to the NFL, obviously, where the athletes are stronger too. So coverage skills are being valued more than guys who cant even hit folks to the ground, let alone tackle well.
I say all this in addition to the rules changes, not in argument against. It’s a compounding effect.
October 26th, 2021 at 3:39 pm
I hated this guy for 20 years.
Now I would have his baby. And I’m not gay.
October 26th, 2021 at 3:50 pm
SWAMPBUC
😂 That’s funny. There’s definitely a lot of man crush is going on. Seeingg th and hearing him in your home market, we have a lot more access now.
He is pretty remarkable
October 26th, 2021 at 4:12 pm
@Swampbuc. Just don’t be greedy. Let me at least be his side piece.
October 26th, 2021 at 4:12 pm
Some of y’all are acting like today’s NFL is just 7 on 7. Of course right now Brady makes the position look easy but still PLENTY of quarterbacks and offenses in the NFL struggling just ask Patrick Mahomes.
I am certainly not longing for the days of the I formation….today’s NFL is an excellent product.
October 26th, 2021 at 4:24 pm
I think Ishmael could have leveled Evans and not been penalized. He just didn’t make the play. The key is timing and making sure you don’t make the hit before the ball gets there.
October 26th, 2021 at 4:39 pm
@Swampbuc
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Funny stuff😆
October 26th, 2021 at 4:46 pm
It’s not that difficult to see both sides of the argument, and the ‘new rules’ are probably a compromise to a degree. Players today are not just bigger & faster in general, but they’re more skilled (as in ‘better trained’) than they were say 25-30 years ago or more.
The NFL certainly saw over the years how much damage players could do to each other in just playing the game. There’s risk involved to be sure, and many players have paid a dear price for ‘playing the game’. I’m sure that the various rule changes haven’t been perfect, but the intent surely has always been to try to keep that ‘damage’ to an ‘acceptable’ level (however one defines ‘acceptable’ of course).
I get what Tom Brady is saying, but does anyone believe that he would’ve traded places with Justin Fields this past Sunday night? He’s in great shape & certainly a QB genius, but it’s our OLine that allows him to keep playing right now at age 44. Fields didn’t have anywhere near that same protection, and was totally vulnerable in that game. Without some of those ‘rule changes’ to protect him, I kinda doubt that he would’ve made it to the end of the game if Vea & Suh & some of the others were allowed to really tee off on him. Same probably applies to all the skill positions.
October 26th, 2021 at 5:14 pm
John Lynch !
October 26th, 2021 at 5:21 pm
My technical, in depth analysis, of the Bucs football team : they are good.
October 26th, 2021 at 5:25 pm
Brady would have retired by now too.
October 26th, 2021 at 5:31 pm
Game planning for the Bucs is rough.
Mike Tyson, said it best : “Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face”
October 26th, 2021 at 5:56 pm
Modern NFL is not that exciting. What was exciting, to me, was Alstott trucking fools and Barry Sanders breaking defenders ankles. The pass game seems to have more big plays these days (and more flags, which are not entertaining). But the run game is definitely more boring today. You just don’t see those special backs anymore. The bruisers and the guys who could juke you out of your drawers are a thing of the past. And of course the days of Lynch knocking people out and Sapp body slamming Faulk are gone too. But the players are playing longer and that is a good thing.
October 26th, 2021 at 7:48 pm
With players playing longer, more players available for expansion teams. More money for the NFL
October 26th, 2021 at 7:49 pm
I get the bad O line reference when talking about the Bears offense last week.
Just weird to me that one acts like that it also did not have to do with Justin Fields ability to process what the defense is doing. The reason he gets hit a lot is not only on the offensive line. It is on him too.
That young quarterback his a lot of physical talent but my bet is he never understands the nuances of this game no matter what coach. He just processes too slowly for the NFL. He did in the championship game as well. It was there for all to see.
October 26th, 2021 at 9:34 pm
Completely agree with players being afraid to hit QBs. They whiff on tackles because they’re trying to nicely wrap up scrambling QBs. You see more than a few plays where if the player had just left his feet the qb would have been sacked or stopped short on a run
October 26th, 2021 at 10:19 pm
We all like to see the big hits, just how it is. lol But if you are a former player and you cannot even get out of bed because your body is wracked with pain, you might see it different. Back in the 80’s I watched a story on A&E about Jim Otto, the old Raiders Center. He had something like 7-8 surgeries, maybe more. Just seeing him try to get out of bed was pretty hard to watch, the pain was terrible. His knees were wrecked. For Jim to get up and go to the bathroom was hell. That was Jim’s EVERY day experience. It was an eye opener for me. I have always loved football, but being young at that time, I never thought much about the other side of it and all the pain that so many of the Older Players endure moment by moment, day by day. We now have countless stories of older players and the pain they live with, let alone the concussions. But back in the 80’s it was just not talked that much about.
So I get why they have changed the rules. They are trying to do better, but it will always be an imperfect science. How do you take violence out of a violent game? Yes I know the NFL is making rule changes because of money and not player concern.
With that being said I still like to see big hits, but I now have some empathy for these players getting rocked and the pain they will live with for decades after the finish playing football. So when you think about this, whatever they pay the players does not come close to what so many of the players have to do to earn that money. Because so many ex players live in daily pain now, and just want some kind of relief from pain that money cannot buy. Yeah drugs can help or they can harm, but not a pleasant way to live. For the ex players that are able to function better daily, more power to them, but for so many, life is daily pain of some sort. If you listen to some guys, they would do it again in a heartbeat, and others would not have played. Just a reality check about Football. And after all that I still love to watch football lol lol like any other fan.
GO BUCS!!!!
October 26th, 2021 at 11:21 pm
Brady is right and I complain about the sissya$$ rules all of the time. Football is easily still the best sport on earth, but we are watching a watered down product in college and the NFL nowadays. Marino and Rice would have untouchable records if they played under today’s rules. Players are much more of an investment now than they used to be and I get the safety aspect, but I miss pre nineties football man.
October 26th, 2021 at 11:58 pm
Back when Montana late 70’s-80’s and Marino and Rice 80’s -90’s played, the older players said how it was watered down then.
Jack Lambert 70’s said they need to put dresses on the QB’s.
So maybe go back to 60’s and 50’s Just brutal during and after the play, carnage, slamming people out of bounds and so many other things.
So really pick your era, like “Count Dracula in Cleats” Lambert, he and other players said it was pussified then.
But whatever even today in 2021, it still is my favorite sport.
GO BUCS!!!!