Tom Brady wants modern football to come out of his backyard

Tom Brady is retiring for the second time after the 2022 season. Next year, he will make his NFL debut with Fox, with a salary of $35 million per year. And if he approaches this task with the attitude he showed during Monday’s interview with Stephen A. Smith, he’ll spend a lot of time shaking his fist at football-like clouds.

Via TheAthletic.com, Brady said there is “Lots of mediocrity in today’s NFL“.

Of course there is. Because everything we used to do was always better when we did it.

“I think coaching is not as good as it used to be,” Brady said. “I don’t think the development of young players is as good as it used to be. I don’t think the schemes are as good as they used to be. The rules have allowed a lot of bad habits to affect the actual performance of the game. . . . So I think the product in my opinion is less than it used to be.” .

Brady has continued to rant against rule changes that make the game safer, but also make offensive players less inclined to protect themselves.

“I look at a lot of guys like Ray Lewis, Rodney Harrison, Ronnie Lott, guys who affected the game in a certain way — and every hit they would make was a penalty,” Brady said. “You hear coaches complaining about their players getting tackled, and not necessarily – why don’t they talk to their players about how to protect themselves? . . . We used to work on the basics of those things all the time. Now they’re trying to be structured all the time.”

Naturally, Brady was constantly looking for flags whenever he got hit. Sometimes he got it when he shouldn’t, while also getting away with kicking the guy who hit him.

“Offensive players need to protect themselves,” Brady said. “It’s not up to a defensive player to protect an attacking player. The defensive player needs to protect himself. . . . I think a lot of the way the rules came into effect allowed for that – you could basically play carefree, and then if anyone hit you hard, you’d be… There is a penalty.

He has the right to express his opinion. However, at some point, anyone tempted to complain about what the game has become should shut up or stop watching it. They will not change the rules to make the game less safe. Brady will be tilting at windmills if he chooses to use his Fox platform to complain about penalties against defense and offensive players who don’t protect themselves.

Seriously, if he had a problem with the rules, why would he want to call games? Why not start a league that uses the rules he wants to remain part of the NFL?

We can’t have it both ways. We either want a safer game or we want an open season. You can’t want a safe game and then complain about the impact of efforts to make the game safer.

Hopefully Brady finds out before September. And if he doesn’t think he can accept the game as it currently is, maybe he should do something else with Sundays during football season.