Tom Brady wants modern football off his lawn

Tom Brady retires for the second time after the 2022 season. Next year, he will serve as the host of NFL games for the first time on Fox, with an annual salary of $35 million. If he approaches the task with the attitude he showed in his interview with Stephen Smith on Monday, he will spend a lot of time shaking his fist at football-shaped clouds.

Brady said via TheAthletic.com “There’s a lot of mediocrity in the NFL today“.

Of course there is. Because everything we’ve done in the past is always better when we do it.

“I don’t think the coaching is 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. Those rules allow a lot of bad habits to seep into the performance of the game right now. . . . So I just think I don’t think the product is as good as it used to be. .”

Brady continues to oppose rule changes that make the game safer but also make offensive players less willing to protect themselves.

“I look at a lot of players like Ray Lewis, Rodney Harrison and Ronnie Lott, and players who impact the game in some way – every hit they take is going to be a penalty, “Brady said. “You hear coaches complaining about their own players getting tackled, but not necessarily — why don’t they talk to their players about how to protect themselves? . . . We used to work on the basics of these things. Now they’ve been Trying to be regulated.”

Of course, every time Brady gets hit, he’s constantly looking for the flag. Sometimes he gets them when he doesn’t deserve them, while also getting away with kicking those who hit him.

“Offensive players need to protect themselves,” Brady said. “Defensive players aren’t supposed to be protecting offensive players. Defensive players need to protect themselves. . . . I think a lot of the way the rules work allows for that to happen – you can basically play carefree and then if someone gets hard If the ground hits you, you will be punished.”

He is entitled to his opinion. However, at some point, anyone who’s inclined to complain about the current state of gaming needs to shut up or stop watching it. They won’t change the rules to make the game less safe. If Brady chooses to use his Fox platform to complain about penalties against defensive players and offensive players for not protecting themselves, he will be tipping the windmills.

Seriously, why would he call the game if he had a problem with the rules? Why not create a league that uses rules that he hopes will still be part of the NFL?

We cannot have the best of both worlds. Either we 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 it safer.

Hopefully Brady can figure this out by September. If he doesn’t think he can handle the current game, maybe he should do something else on Sundays during football season.