Tom Brady is one of the best quarterbacks of all time but you couldn’t tell that from his performance on Sunday. He went 25 of 40 for 243 yards and one touchdown while getting sacked twice against the Steelers.
The Bucs never led in the game and scored their only touchdown with 4:38 remaining in the fourth quarter. It was a frustrating afternoon for the Bucs in Pittsburgh and Brady took some of that frustration out on his offensive line late in the first half.
With Tampa Bay now at 3-3, things seem to be unraveling a bit. The lack of leadership was evident on Sunday, especially with Brady chewing out his line.
Kasey Hudson and Kailey Mizelle of the Audacy Original Podcast “Jolly Rogers & Touchdowns” discussed the Bucs’ loss, leadership issues, and Brady’s sideline spat.
“I don’t see backbone on this team,” Mizelle said (10:54 in player above). “I don’t see a backbone offensively at all. Last year you had Bruce Arians and offense, he had this mind and the way that him and Tom Brady interacted and it seemed like there was leadership. There was structure. There were people who did things. You knew the order about how things were going to go between the coaching staff, the players.”
Arians stepped down as head coach back in March and took on a new role as a Senior Football Consultant. He's still involved, but it's not the same. That is showing on the field.
“There’s no backbone on this offense and you can take that in a number of ways. I’m talking about there’s no backbone in terms of well who’s holding everybody accountable. I don’t see it,” she continued. “There’s no backbone in terms of leadership. Who’s stepping up and getting people hyped up? Who’s really kind of honing in and giving the pep talks to this team at halftime? I don’t see it. Who’s making adjustments? I don’t see it. I don’t see responsibility. I don’t see leadership. I don’t see creativity. I don’t see it! There’s not a backbone.
“That’s a problem. That’s a huge problem and so what you get whenever you don’t have one leader, or one structure taking responsibility and being the backbone, you get the blame game,” Mizelle said. “You get adults sitting and pointing the finger at each other.”
That’s exactly what Brady did on Sunday.
“I’m not mad that you’re yelling at your offensive line. Yeah, they need to perform better but so do you. And there has to be accountability on both ends,” she said. “Tom Brady is one of the least-pressured quarterbacks in the entire NFL statistically.”
Brady’s quick release may factor into those numbers, but the offensive line deserves some credit for limiting the number of hurry-ups, pressures, and sacks that the quarterback has taken.
“Overall, statistically, he’s one of the least-pressured quarterbacks this year in this league. I’m not saying that the o-line is perfect – and statistics don’t account for everything, it’s impossible to do, but you combine statistics with the football knowledge and what you’ve seen, and what I’m saying is the picture it paints, to me, is not that this is all on the o-line because it’s not,” Mizelle said. “It’s not that it’s all on Tom Brady either. Did he have a bad day? Yes, he did. He had an atypical day for Tom Brady. He had a bad day out there. There was no chemistry. But it’s overall.
“There just isn’t somebody stepping up and that makes a difference,” she continued. “You can’t put a number on leadership. You can’t put a percentage point on what leadership does to a locker room, and right now nobody is saying ‘The buck stops with me. I’m going to take the responsibility. I’m going to own up. I’m going to be the man…’ No one’s doing that.”
The Buccaneers will look to find that backbone and leadership when they travel to Carolina to take on the Panthers in Week 7.
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