Tom Brady was perfect in overtime Sunday as the Buccaneers erased a two-score deficit to come back and beat the Cardinals on Christmas Night.
But for most of the game, Brady was awful. The all-time great looked frustrated and despondent, missing several throws to open receivers.
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Cris Collinsworth, however, refused to believe it. The “Sunday Night Football” analyst twisted himself in logistical pretzels to avoid directly criticizing Brady for Tampa Bay’s inept offensive attack.
Coming back from a commercial break, Mike Tirico observed that Brady looked disgusted. “It’s the face we’ve seen all year. What is going on?,” he asked.
Collinsworth blamed the Buccaneers’ personnel.
“Let’s go back just a little bit. When they were Super Bowl champions and having a great run on offense, Rob Gronkowski was on that team. Antonio Brown was on that team,” he said. “They had explosive ways to make offense down the field. They don’t really have that great speed element that Tom Brady believes in right now.”
Collinsworth is right to point out the Bucs’ weakened roster, especially on the offensive line. They’re dealing with a myriad of injuries, and were down to their third left tackle Sunday.
As a result, Brady wasn’t afforded the time for plays to develop down the field. Instead, the Bucs’ passing game was relegated to screens to Leonard Fournette and short slants to Chris Godwin.
“He has really sped up the process. Under 2 seconds per throw. That’s the kind of issues they’re having in protection right now,” said Collinsworth.
But still, Brady missed plenty of throws, including a wide open Julio Jones in the right corner of the end zone. Collinsworth, who did critique one of Brady’s bad throws in the first half, largely deflected.
When Brady threw his second interception of the night to Marco Wilson — an under-thrown duck intended for Mike Evans — Collinsworth said something about how Brady probably couldn’t believe how open Evans was.
Huh?
“That was a wide open recorder against two-man. Evans, great route. Wide open. It was almost like Tom wouldn’t believe it was that wide open,” said Collinsworth.
For most of the night, Collinsworth blamed Brady’s lack of success on timing, stressing that the 45-year-old still has a strong arm. “The timing is not there. There’s no way he misses that throw to Mike Evans. There’s no way he misses that throw to Julio Jones in the first half. It doesn’t happen,” he said.
But it is happening. Brady was able to turn back the clock during overtime to outlast the Cardinals and rookie Trace McSorley by a score of 19-16. But it was hardly a vintage performance, no matter what excuses Collinsworth offered.