Tom Brady isn’t impressed by what he’s seeing in the NFL.
In a new interview, the 46-year-old retired quarterback voiced his frustrations with the decline of “quality” he’s seeing on-field during games.
“I think there’s a lot of mediocrity in today’s NFL,” Tom shared on The Stephen A. Smith Show. “I don’t see the excellence that I saw in the past.”
Tom then went on to provide some reasons why the performances are dwindling.
“I think the coaching isn’t as good as it was,” Tom said. “I don’t think the development of young players is as good as it was.”
Tom also blamed “the rules” for “allowed a lot of bad habits to get into the actual performance of the game,” adding, “I just think the product, in my opinion, is less than what it’s been.
Tom said that he looks “at guys that impacted the game in a certain way,” naming NFL icons Ray Lewis, Rodney Harrison, and Ronnie Lott.
“Every hit they would have made would have been a penalty,” Tom said, insisting that his generation in the NFL “used to work on the fundamentals” of the sport.
“You hear coaches complaining about their own player being tackled. Why don’t they talk to their player about how to protect themselves?” Tom questioned. “Offensive players need to protect themselves.”
He insisted that it “isn’t up to a defensive player to protect an offensive player,” just as a “defensive player needs to protect himself.”
“I didn’t throw the ball to certain areas because I was afraid players were gonna get knocked out. That’s the reality,” Tom concluded. “I didn’t throw it to the middle when I played Ray Lewis because he’d knock them out of the game, and I couldn’t afford to lose a good player.”
It was recently announced that Tom‘s life will soon be the subject of a major TV series!
