The Ringer NFL Show - Is Tom Brady Just Going to Play Forever?

Episode Date: September 29, 2021

Kevin is joined by Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer to discuss Tom Brady’s reign, Brady's career in New England, and how he views rookie QBs. Then he talks with PFF’s Sam Monson about how Brady continues to stay dominant and how long this can continue.  Host: Kevin Clark  Guests: Albert Breer and Sam Monson Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody. I'm JJ John D. Stramski. And I'm Jason Gough, and if you haven't heard, the ringer has gone local. I'm bringing the fire. I'm bringing the rain from the Big Apple with my show, New York, New York. And I'm reping Shy Town with my new show The Full Go on All Things Chicago. We've got episodes three nights a week with all the reaction to the local teams and guests. Plus bonus episodes around all the big games and storylines.

So whether you're uptown, downtown, downtown, in the burbs, or a transplant. Make sure you follow New York, New York, and the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. It is the Ringwred NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast. Now, I'm Kevin Clark, joined today by a couple of great guests for one big question. Is Tom Brady going to play forever? With that comes a lot of different questions. How the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have maximized Tom Brady, how Tom Brady has maximized Tom Brady in his age 44 season,

what this means for the Patriots, what Tom Brady leaving New England for Tampa Bay Bay has meant for other quarterbacks and whether that will impact the future of quarterback movement, a player movement, a superstar movement in the NFL. Really interesting discussion. also a look at the rookie quarterbacks, how they're doing, what's wrong with the Bears, and many other things. Albert Breer from Sports Illustrated will join us, and Sam Monston from Pro Football Focus will also join awesome conversations.

Let's get to it. Albert Breer from Sports Illustrated, what's your title? Are you just insider? Yeah, I mean, like, when I replaced Peter, they gave me the title lead content strategist, which sort of meant like I was going to help map out the site. The site kind of merged with S-I-N-FL, So, you know, senior writer slash senior reporter.

I mean, I don't know. Like, the short of it is, like, I don't really ever refer to myself by my title. So whatever it is, I mean, I think it maybe has something to do with how I'm paid, which, you know. Yeah, yeah. So maybe it's important from that standpoint, right? Like, I guess. You know, I don't know. Whatever gets you the most money is the title I'll call you.

That's right. Yeah, absolutely. So we're doing an episode with a very simple question. Is Tom Brady going to play forever? And the answer seems to be yes. And the reason I had you on, Albert, is because four or five years ago, you were one of the first people I saw report what Tom Brady, not only what his goals were, because Brady always talked about his goals, but why they were his goals.

And you talked about some of the Tom House stuff and how Tom Brady was aging were in 2021. one. And I don't think anyone expected, maybe they expected time ready to be playing at this point when he's 44 years old, but not coming off the Super Bowl, not captioning one of the best offenses in football. And I'm curious, as someone who studied it

and been around it and been close to it, are you surprised that it's been this good for this long and it's still happening? Or did you, having followed it, did you understand what the kind of roadmap was for Brady? Okay, so I'll answer this two different ways. Am I surprised that he still has the

desire to keep going, no. Am I surprised that he's still playing at this level at this age? Of course, I don't know how you couldn't be. I mean, there's no precedent for this at all. You know, and as much as he and Tom House and Alex Carrero and all the different people studied it, you know, we still had no precedent. And, you know, I think that's part of the reason why he's not a Patriot anymore is that there wasn't a precedent for it. You know, and so am I surprised that he still wants to play? No, because I think everyone has gotten his motivation for playing wrong for a long, long time. But I am surprised that he's able to perform at this level of this age

because we've seen so many other examples of guys falling off way, way before this. So, okay, there's a couple of things you say that were interesting. The first one is the motivation. You say people have gotten wrong his motivation for playing. What is his motivation for playing? He needs competition the way a lot of us need oxygen. And I mean, all of us need oxygen, I guess, right? So, like, I've always...

Is that part of the TP-12 method? Yeah, I mean, I think that there maybe... If there's some sort of competition drug, I guarantee you, like, he's bottled it. Yeah, it's in his veins, and they'll be marketing it soon on the website. I don't like, honestly, like, I think a lot of people think, like, okay, like, well, he's looking for some sort of fairy tale ending, or he's looking to get back at Bill now. And I just don't think that's it.

Like I just, I mean, maybe like the most insightful thing that people have said to me over the years about Tom is that he's legitimately fearful of what life is going to be like without football. He's legitimately fearful of what is going to happen when he doesn't have this outlet. And you hear all these different stories about how competitive he is. And, you know, I've got a million of them.

that I've heard from different guys who've played with him and been around him about how everything's a competition for him. Well, this is such an incredible outlet for him to satisfy that. You know? And so I just think he genuinely so I think like competition

keeps him going. Love of football keeps him going. It has nothing to do with legacy or putting another trophy on the mantle or proving Belichick wrong. The other piece of it that I think people miss is what happens with most football players, they don't fall out of love with Sunday.

The guys who are lucky enough to make their own decision on it, right? Because both you and I know, like that percentage of players that are actually in position to make that decision on their own and not have somebody else, it's really, really small, right? But most of those guys, like the guys who are lucky enough to be able to make that decision for themselves, they don't fall out of love with Sunday, Kevin.

They fall out of love with Monday through Saturday, right? Like they fall out of love with having to stay on it in the five, six, seven months of the off season and like having to live their life that way. Because the older you get, the more you have to live your life that way, right? Because you're losing it physically. It's not as naturally there for you. And that's the other part about Brady that I think people miss. He loves the other parts of it. Like he loves the other parts of it.

I'm sure you've heard the story. And there's a famous story out there about, you know, about, you know, when he was at, you know, Will McDonough, who is, you know, used to be his right-hand guy for all those years early in his career, who had been a marketing guy for the Patriots. He got married, I think it was in the Bahamas. And there's a story that's been out there for a while now about how all these guys are waking up at 6.30 a.m., just destroyed from the night before. And there's some sort of breakfast or something like that.

They look out the window, and Brady's like, you know, running with resistance bands with Alex Guerrero on a football field down the street. So, you know, I think that's the other part of it is, like, not only does he love Sunday, he actually genuinely enjoys the process of getting his body ready and getting his mind ready to play that Monday through Saturday, which, you know, ultimately that stuff's going to be his life's work after he's done playing. But I think that's the other part of it that keeps him on the field is that he doesn't hate the parts of it that I think a lot of athletes grow to hate.

Okay. So I want to go back to something about the roadmap and the studying and the Tom House and Alisper and all that stuff. You've talked about it. part of it's based on Nolan Ryan's throwing motion and how he was aging. Just give us a brief, or not brief, or not brief, however you want to take it, the overview on what track they've been followed. So, like, 45 sounds like an arbitrary number just because it's, I guess, the definition of your mid-40s, right?

So that sounds like an arbitrary number, but it's not. It's actually part of the study that Tom House and people around Tom House have done into athletes and athletic performance. And, you know, it's basically based on Nolan Ryan. Tom House played with Nolan Ryan. And so, you know, like the basis for him studying how long athletes can play for, how long they can perform for, you know, was based a lot of it on his experience around Nolan Ryan,

where he was around Nolan Ryan, Nolan Ryan started to lose it after 45. Well, why is that? It's not for the reasons a lot of people think. The reason why is because your body can't recover the same way, which makes it so you can't train the same way. So, like, what they found was, and I don't ask me to explain the science of this, but like basically what they found was physiologically, after you get past 45, and obviously

it's not a hard number, but right around there, your body doesn't recover the same way than it did before. And that makes it so much more difficult to train and maintain the level of strength, the level of speed, all the different stuff that go into being able to move around like a pro athlete, being able to throw like a pro athlete. So, you know, that's why Tom Brady used that number 45. It's also why you heard Drew Breeze used that number at one point. He didn't make it there, but he used that number to me. I mean, I had Andy Dalton use that number to me. And I know that sounds funny now, right? But I've heard, but I've heard Andy Dalton work with Tom House too. So

you hear all these different guys say it, right? And I think people think that that's, just a number of people throw out there, but it's an actual, God, and you're rubbing your forehead now. No, I did. But there's actual science game number 45. Yes, I'm imagining a meeting where it's Tom House,

Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Andy Dalton, and all three of them say, yes, we're going into our 40s. And Breeze and Brady just look at Dalton. They're like, yeah, man, right on.

Absolutely, definitely. Yeah. But I mean, but that's the whole point. It's like, it's not an arbitrary number. There's actually science behind it. And that's why Brady,

always set the number at 45. And that's, I think, why now he's sort of like, well, if that number doesn't necessarily apply to me, if I can kind of cheat that number somehow, then I want to keep playing. Because I think he knows, too. Here's the other thing. The other thing about football, Kevin,

is you can't just go play in a men's league. When you're done, you're done. You know what I mean? So that's part of it, too. I want to talk about the effect that Brady sat around the lead, because I think that, and this is something, the moment that Brady left the Patriots, in my mind, I said, okay, everything that happened before this is a matter of history.

And it is settled and nothing can change how I view the Patriots dynasty based on what happened after. Then Tom Brady did a bunch of stuff that changed how I thought about the Patriots dynasty. And he went out and he basically used the bucks as an indictment, unintentionally, obviously, of how Belichick and Josh McChannels built the offense the last few years he was into or intentional.

Intentionally, yeah, sure. He didn't, he didn't say it, you know, right? It was a sub-tweet, I guess you could say, right? And you just look at how that offense was built in the last few years and it was clear the limitations were not Brady's. The limitations were the personnel around him. And now I think, and you think,

that there are people around the league who are top top quarterbacks who say, you know what? I'd like to do that. And I'm curious what you think that the quote unquote Brady effect will be, not the aging part of it, just the, I'm going to go stake my claim and do my own thing and show how good I am. So, like, two pieces of this. I think the first piece like what you mentioned is like the impact that Brady had on that organization overall, I think has now been confirmed. I think we all sort of thought this, but the idea like that Brady facilitated so many things in New England, he facilitated. Belichick's coaching style. He facilitated their economic system. He facilitated their off-season program. He facilitated so many things just by being him inside that building, right? And he's

basically taken that, and I know you've been down there, Kevin. That's Brady's showdown there. Like, he's taking it and he's basically exported it, right? And now the bucks are getting guys on reasonable contracts to stay. The bucks are working in the off-season in a way that it's just completely different than other teams. I mean, I don't know how much you paid attention to this, or the listeners paid attention to this, but the Bucks were basically running two off-season programs in the spring because Brady had had the veterans off-site working, and Arians was running basically a developmental program for the young guy. So Brady facilitated that. You know, he's facilitated the, like, he just, like, raises the bar for everybody, you know,

and so, like, I think that's the first piece of it. The second piece of it, which I think is more interesting just from a global standpoint is what he's done across the league. I firmly believe a lot of the Aaron Rogers drama and a lot of the Russell Wilson drama was a result of Tom Brady not only doing what he did, but it worked. I think it's the first real example. If we've seen a team operating that way in professional football where it actually worked. And so I think you're Aaron Rogers and you're Russell Wilson's. then, you know, before, before, you know, the more serious stuff happened to Sean Watson, too,

I think these guys look at it and say, I want that. You know what I mean? Like, I want a team to be building on my timeline. Because if you look at the way the bucks have built, it's, I don't, we don't care what happens after Brady's here. We're going to compete for championships for the next couple of years, and we'll deal with whatever comes next when it comes. And so, like, I think, you know, a Russell Wilson or Aaron Rogers looks at it and says,

why isn't my team building that way? Why can't? And if I can put myself in a new situation where a team's going to invest in me at that level, then that team will be basically compelled to operate that way. And oh, by the way, part of this, that's what I'm up against, right? Like if I want to compete for a championship

for the next two years, that's what I'm competing against. And, you know, I, so I think that it's had this effect on quarterbacks where it's like, I think they all sort of look at it and say, I want an organization to build on my timeline. I want an organization to be aggressive in finding me weapons.

I want an organization to optimize my personal performance. And I want to be working for an organization that's going to act with a sort of urgency that's going to put me in a position to compete with Tampa Bet. And it's so crazy to think that because no one thought of the Buccaneers 18 months ago. But I think that sort of illustrates really well kind of what's happened here. Yeah, and it's interesting because I think that over the last couple of years, we'll talk about the Chiefs and they're saying, oh, Orlando Brown trade was a bit of a panic and all that or whatever,

the Frank Carr trade was bad. And some of these, yeah, in a vacuum with player value have not worked out, but you have Patrick Mahomes and you're just maximizing the window. You're going all in, you're taking these risks because one day you won't have Patrick Mahomes. And like, I understand the long game, and I've long admired the long game, but you also understand that you have the best quarterback football, do something with him. And also here's here's, here's the other. One other thing I think is important to mention there.

When you have Brady, right, if it doesn't work out it, like, sort of like, he can erase that, right? Like, if you make a move that doesn't work out, like, you know, we talked about them loading up last year. Like, Shady McCoy, like, Shady McCoy is a great player back in the day. Shit, that didn't really do much for them last year. You know what I mean? Like, the Linder 4 net net move didn't really pay off until the playoffs, right? Yeah. So that's the other part of it is if you're making these.

sorts of moves over the course of the year, Brady has a way of either enhancing those moves or erasing the moves if they're mistakes. Shady McCoy put him over the top. He was the difference between beating... Like moral support? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I'm...

The question you brought up earlier, everyone thinks so he's mad at Bill, maybe that's why he's doing, or that might be some part of it. Is he mad at Bill? Yeah, I don't think that relationship's in a very good place. But I would say this.

I think 10, 15, 20 years down the line, they'll probably be sitting on the back porch of some country club that me or you will never be welcome in and laughing about all of this. And I think part of that is Bill. Part of that is Brady. But I think, like, my feeling on it is this is sort of who Bill's always been.

And I remember having a conversation with Drew Bloods. so about this. And, you know, Drew obviously had a really ugly exit from New England, right? Yeah. And so he and I, this is when I went out to visit him in Oregon a couple of years ago. And Drew was a great guy. And, you know, I, like, I asked him, I'm like, so where's your relationship with Parcells and where's your relationship with Belichick? And he says, it's funny. It's kind of the opposite that I thought it would be. He's like, I've got no relationship with Parcells. And I've got a great relationship with Belichick. I said, oh, that's funny. Like, why is that? And he said, well he's like basically you know I like I I remember going to the Patriots Hall when I got in the Patriots Hall of Fame in 11 and you know I show up and you know I like they they have like an in stadium practice that day right so I go out and they're going to introduce me at the end stadium practice or whatever before they induct me in the Hall of Fame and he's like and I'm nervous because I still have some like hard feelings for Bill at the time and I like I'm not completely over it and I also think like if I go out there in the field during practice and I'm like

it's going to be really awkward. And he said he went up to Bill and Bill gave him a big hug and said, how's your wine? Like, how's your family? How it said it couldn't have been warmer, right? And that sort of took me back to another story, which, and I know I'm being long-winded here, so I apologize for that. But there's another story of like, this was maybe three years before that.

And I was with Bill and doing a big kind of Q&A thing with him. And I said to him, you know, I had some. somebody compare you to Carnegie. And like, he kind of smirked at me. And he's like, well, what did that mean? And I said, well, I said, this person who knows you pretty well said you're like Carnegie in that when you're at work with, when you were at work with Carnegie, back in Pittsburgh and whatever it was, right, he was the most difficult person to work for.

And everyone cursed him out. And he was just like an a hole, right? Like, but he got results. He got results. But he was an a hole. It was tough to work for, right? And then Carnegie would go home and, like, get around his family and his friends, and he would snap his fingers and be a totally different person,

charitable in the community, good to the people around him. Everyone loves him. So I tell Bill this, right? And Bill just looks at me and kind of smiles and goes, well, it's pretty flattering to be compared to Carnegie. So, you know what I mean? So he's sort of like that. And I think that that's what I think that's what.

it is. Like I think Bill with players, with coaches who've worked for him, like he is as good as anybody I've ever seen it compartmentalizing his life. And so I think it is, I think it literally is, like people are in his professional life.

And then eventually they move over to his personal life and he's like he's a different person. And there will come a time when Brady moves from his professional life to his personal life. And when it gets there, I think it'll be all right. Has this last 18 months, whatever you want to call it, changed anything about how you viewed the first 20 years of the Patriots dynasty?

Maybe a little. You know, I think I sort of like look at, I look at it as like almost two dynasties now. And so, and I think I think we always have like, right? Like there's that natural breaking. Yeah, Tom Curran has talked about that where he thinks that the first three Super Bowls were Belich. The second three were Brady. Yeah, and I agree with Tom on that one. Like I like that's sort of where I was going is that I think, you know, if there's a natural breaking

point in 2009 you know they tried to kind of like hang on to a lot of the vestiges of the last dynasty and it didn't work and that was the year that NFL films followed bill around you remember like there was a shot of him and brady on the sidelines like it was something along the lines like i just can't get this team to do what i wanted to do or something like that right yeah yeah so and then the second dynasty started with the 10 draft which was mccordy and gronk and and erin hernandez and and so i think like i i think i think i think current's spot spot on on there and saying like the first three, I think were largely built and maybe it took us a little while to catch on to how good Brady was. Like when I started, when I first covered the NFL,

my first beat was a Patriots beat. In 2005, Kevin, there was still like some people who thought like Brady was like a game manager. There were like people who thought like, you know, and he was making a lot less money at the time than Peyton. He got a new contract. It was like, you know, it was like 70% of what Peyton Manning's contract was. And so I think like there, I think, I think it was a little more, it wasn't all Belichick at the first three, but I think it was, you know,

if you had to split it up, I think maybe a bigger, a bigger percentage of it was Belichick than Brady at that point, especially because those 03 and 04 teams, those rosters were loaded if you look back at it. And then the last three, dude, I mean,

they came back from down two touchdowns in the fourth quarter against maybe the best defense of that generation, right, the Seahawks defense. And then two years later came back from 28 to three down in the Super Bowl against the Falcons. And then two years after that, in a game that was played like it was in 1965, right?

Like it was just a complete slug fest. He's able to summon a drive at the very end and win that game too. And he won three very different types of games against three very different defenses on the biggest stage in the world, went to another Super Bowl and threw for 500 yards and lost. Right? Like, I mean, like, I just think, I don't think that the last three championships,

Like to me, I'm with Curran on that and saying, like, those three championships were more Brady than Belichette. The was this weird thing that's been going on in the past couple weeks where everyone's well, you know, Bill doesn't care. Bill just sees this in just another game. And whether or not. Oh, no, he does. That's BS.

No, but it's total BS. I mean, first of all, anybody you've worked with for a long time, you're going to think about it differently. I mean, like, for God's sake, I was reading Jason Gay's column yesterday. And like we worked together for six years. And oh, hey, there's Jason. You know, like, we worked together for six years. It's just a thought you have.

Okay? And so, like, the idea that Belichick would be total neutral on this game, A, is ridiculous. Even if he just loved their relationship. And even if, you know, it's just a thought process you have. But then you add in 20 years, you add in all the narratives. You think Belichick is doing this. How? I think he views it as, I think it's personally very important to him.

And I don't think he's going to tell anybody that. But I think personally, deep down, I mean, look, like, we all say, like, and I mean, for one reason or another, there's been people that have been out there, like, saying forever, like, Bill doesn't really care about, like, the way, you know, history views him or he's just working week to week and one game at a time and all it's BS, right? This is the same guy, by the way, who let NFL films follow him around for an entire season in the middle of his career, right? Yeah. The same guy who had David Halberstam write a biography on him. the same guy who, like, welcome the opportunity to sit down on the NFL 100 series, right? Like, if Bill has proper control over some of these projects, he's more than happy to do him.

Why? Because he cares about his legacy, period. End of story. Like, you can't be somebody who appreciates football history as much as he does. And he knows football history. I would wager he knows football history better than anybody on planet Earth. Yes. Yes.

You aren't that way and not care about where you fit into it, right? There's no way. So, like, I think he understands the magnitude of it. And I think he understands, like, if Brady's already got one up on him, he understands they probably won't see each other again, right? They probably won't play again. If you think about it, it'd have to be a Super Bowl or they could play again. With the 17th game, they could play again in 2023, which would be Brady at age 46,

if the Bucks and the Patriots finish in corresponding positions in the NFC South and AFCs. If that doesn't happen and they don't mean the Super Bowl, then they wouldn't play again until Brady's 48. And even I don't think Brady's playing 48.

So, like, I think he understands he's got one shot at this. And I think he understands the way history is going to view those too. And I, you know, I do think that, like, I think he took special pride in, like, how he used to own blood so,

right? Like, how he used to own. own blood so in those games. Like, I, I just think that there are certain things that, that are important to him and that he'll never admit

because it might seem petty or it might seem small, but I think this is one of them. Like, I think it matters to him how his team shows up in a game like this. So if you don't think Brady's going to make it to 48,

Breeze already didn't make it to 48. I guess I shouldn't say that, right? No, no. I'm kind of like putting myself back there. There's one more guy who can make it to 48 and it's Andy Dalton. It's, he's going to be a last hope.

Justin Fields might save him a few hits here if you can take the job. Yeah, I hear that. I want to talk about the young quarterbacks because I want to get into Mac Jones here for a second. But what's interesting right now is that the young quarterbacks are winless unless they're playing another rookie, which is Mack Jones's situation. Is there a panic level to any of these or any of these teams saying, okay, uh-oh, we've made the wrong pick. Are they saying, hey, we're on the lessons of Josh Allen? Or, I mean, there's so many different ways you can go with that you can say, okay, Justin Herbert hit immediately. We know he was great.

Josh Allen did not hit immediately. We did not know he was great. Patrick Mahomes sat for a year, all that stuff. There's so many different ways you can go with it. Can you just give me a broad temperature and then get as specific as you want with the individual cases on how these buildings are dealing with quarterbacks and maybe don't look as good? So I think you cannot look at them as a group because I think each of them, and I don't even know if this year is unique to this, but I mean, generally what you see is

young quarterback goes, rookie quarterback is strapped in the first round by a really bad team, plays right away for that really bad team, that really bad team does everything they can to shelter him, right? Like, that's the way it's always been. And for one reason or another, that just hasn't been the case this year. You know, I had Trent Dilfer on my show last week, and he brought up a really great analogy with Trevor Lawrence that I agreed with. It's the Jaguars are treating Trevor Lawrence in 2021, like the Colts treated Peyton Manning in 1998, where it's just let him go out and play. We think that he's meant to. tough enough and physically tough enough to deal with it. So let's take our lumps. Let's let him

go play quarterback. And if it means we're going 3 and 14 this year, so be it. Take his lumps and it will be better for it next year. And so, and look, I don't think there are, I think there are a lot of young quarterbacks that couldn't handle that. But I think that they clearly feel like Trevor Lawrence can based on his experience and how, you know, how consistently he's been on big stages for a long, long time. Zach Wilson to me doesn't have enough help around him. And I think that's why it looks as crappy as it does. I think that's why you're seeing some of the stuff that,

I think quite honestly, like, that's why you're seeing the stuff that, that some of the stuff that showed up at BYU, you're seeing him like kind of revert to some of that. Yeah. I think part of the problem here, Kevin, is like, like, I think they, what they needed to do, they needed to do like what the Falcons did with Matt Ryan in 2008,

where they went and signed Michael Turner. And basically they said, this is Michael Turner's offense. And it allowed them to ease Matt Ryan in. And it's just allowed them to get in the second and six more. And so like that to me is like I just, I don't think you can sit him down. But, you know, I think Zach Wilson's in a really tough spot. Mack is being managed the way a lot of rookie quarterbacks are managed. The Patriots have until this past week kept him out of,

long yardage. First two weeks of season he was in third down, 28 times. Only four of those third downs were third and 10 or more, which is an amazing stat. And he, and so they're sort of managing him and not asking too much of him. Just be a part of the team. Just be the bus driver, which I think is smart

and they'll build him up as he goes on. And Justin Fields, man, like, I I mean, I just think the Bears could have done so much more to help him. And, you know, I don't want to be too long winded here, but I can tell you what the Browns thought about. Okay. So the Browns

thing, like the Browns went in there thinking. Basically, the Browns looked at the preseason tape, the Bears preseason tape, and then the first two games. They said they have two different offenses. They have their under center offense, which is basically a McVeigh-Shannahan type of offense, and they have their shotgun offense, which has got Andy Reed roots, right? So they looked at that tape and they looked at Justin Fields and he played a ton of snaps in the preseason, and the Browns said Justin Fields looked way more comfortable under center, okay?

We think they're going to play under center more to get the running game going and to get Justin Fields going. Do you know how many times they were under center on Friday, on Sunday? I do not. Four. Four out of 45 snaps. And the Browns kept expecting an adjustment, kept expecting something to change, and it didn't change. So, you know,

when I heard that, then I, you know, I hit up a couple people at Ohio State and I asked them, like what like did you guys like did you guys see this did you see that justin fields was really comfortable under center one of the guys said yeah you know what like so the year before you justin fields got here dwayne haskins was a starting quarterback he's like i don't think we ran one play from under center when haskins was here but we figured out that fields is really good under center so we and we we put under center concepts into our offense because we thought it would make justin feels a better

player and it worked. And so that's the whole thing with Justin to me. It's like, I hope that the bears do more to help him because I, it just felt to me on Sunday like not only is he dealing with everything, a rookie quarterback, uh, is normally dealing with. It also felt like he was dealing with a, he was, he was, he was up against a game plan that didn't feel like it was sort of built for him. Jesus.

I didn't, I, let me tell you something, Albert. I don't think there was any, I didn't think there was this scenario which a Bears fan could have popped on this podcast and felt worse about themselves. And here we are. And that's happening. By the way, it was interesting because Michael, excuse me, Matt Ryan was on Slow Newsday a couple weeks ago and I asked my question.

I said, hey, how do you, what advice do you have for young quarterbacks? Because you came out of the gates looking pretty good in 2008. And he said, get, like, get Michael Turner. and just hand it off to him. I mean, and so much of it is, so much of it, Kevin is like,

you're in second and six, you're in third and two, you're playing, you know, in a competitive games, and you know what that means? That means the defense can throw less at you,

right? Like, the volume of defense that can get thrown at you in third and two is like a fraction of what they can throw at you in third and 12.

And if they know you're throwing, like, if they know you're throwing on, they know you have to throw in every play. Like as a rook, that's an impossible position to be in. I think that's where we've seen

some of Trevor Lawrence's mistakes. I think that's where we've seen some of Zach Wilson's mistakes. And I think it was a part of the reason why Justin Fields struggled on Sunday. Last question, Patriots related. The,

kind of the three weeks of Mac Jones with the camp, all that stuff. Is there optimism in New England that he's the guy? Have they shown anything? Is there, or are they just kind of waiting to the judgment?

and how is that feeling? You know, obviously with the heightened Brady Mac Jones duel this weekend, we'll be talking about that. Yeah. So, like, I just think like it's, like, as advertised, it's kind of like a generic term, but I do think that that applies here. You know, I, I, yeah, I can remember a team telling me, like, that they interviewed Mac Jones, or they talked to Mac Jones at the Senior Bowl in January

and installed a concept with him. And they came back to him the last week they could do interviews. in the middle of April, and they'd talk to him a bunch of times, and they said, all right, like, we want you to install the first concept we installed with you. And he took, they took them through everything. Who was on the field? Like, who, like, who was going to be on the field with him? Like, what they were trying to attack with the defense, where the play was going, why it was going there, took them through everything. And that's really who he is.

Like, he's got one of these, I guess, supercomputer when it comes to football. And so that's who the Patriots have gotten. I asked somebody last week there because I noticed like it looked to me like, you can never really tell, but it looked to me like he was changing some things at the line, protections, all of that. And, you know, the response I got, which I think is a high compliment from Patriots people, is he's running our offense. And I don't know that they would have said that about Cam last year,

but they said he's running our offense. And so I think Mack is where they expected him to be. The problem is the team around him. I just don't think it's very good. The team around him is, it's a very average roster. All the activity in free agency was a result of not drafting very well for an extended period of time. And generally, that's not how you build a team. Like you can be aggressive in free agency, Kevin.

But the teams that have been aggressive in free agency and won with it had a baseline of talent that was in-house that was built. Like the chiefs, right? The chiefs were aggressive with Frank Clark and Tyron Matthew, but they drafted Mahomes. They drafted Travis Kelsey. they drafted Tyree Kill. They drafted their tackles, or they drafted up. You know, Eric Fisher. You look at the bucks, same thing.

Like they were aggressive and free agency to build around Brady. But how many of those guys are homegrown? Levante David, Devin White, you know, Donovan Smith, Mike Evans, Chris Gottwin. So, you know, I think that that's a big piece of it is that, you know, right now they're still sort of in the process of paying the Piper for a very, very dry spell of drafting between. say like 2017 and 2019. Albert Breer will be doing this at age 45. He'll be doing this at age 48. He and Tom Hous and sat together.

Kevin, wouldn't it be weird for somebody like, you're 40 years old, somebody tells you, you can't do it any. I had a conversation with somebody about that, like earlier today. I was like that,

like for football, like I always thought that I was like kind of like, it's got to be like a jarring thing. Like you put all, you put your entire life into something and you get to your mid 30s. It's like, yeah, you can't do this anymore.

You're done, bud. We've noticed a decline in your writing and reporting and your podcasting. We're going to move on. Albert Breyer Sports Illustrated. Thank you so much, buddy. All right, thanks, Kevin. Sam Monson, lead NFL analyst at Pro Football Focus. Irishman.

I'm also Irish. Does it annoy you when Americans are just like, I'm also Irish and they've never been to Ireland? A little bit, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's not quite the same thing, right? You know, being actually from there and being able to. to vaguely trace some sort of ancestry bank there. It's a little bit of a difference.

Vaguely. Vaguely. Look it up. The core keyleys. Scoreboard, buddy. All right. So we're getting into more Brady talk and more bucks talk because I'm fascinated. PFF has done some incredible research on kind of what this

Brady-Tampaign offense has become and what that says about the New England offense is of the few years before he joined Tampa. And quite frankly, it's fascinated because it has changed my entire perspective on what was going on in New England in the last couple of years Brady was there, what's going on in Tampa?

Sam, you've written about this. What has Tampa Bay done? What has Bruce Ariens done? One of the skill guys around him done to unlock more of Brady at this age when we didn't think that was possible. I mean, a big thing, I think, is we're just seeing what happens

when you suddenly get Brady some receiving talent to get. And that was the big thing in New England that they haven't really gotten fixed yet. They're still working towards it. But the last year of Tom Brady, the first year of Cam Newton, at the only year of Cam Newton, I guess. It was the same problem. Like, nobody's getting open. And when nobody gets open to the degree that that was happening in New

England, it makes everything look worse. So Brady has nowhere to go with the ball. And you think, well, that has a limited, you know, knock on effect. It just means that he's not going to be able throw it to any open guys. But it means that Brady starts to hold the ball longer, right? Because he's waiting for somebody to get open and it's never happening. So all of a sudden, the offensive line starts to look worse because Brady's holding on the ball longer than he ever used to. Then Brady starts to look worse under pressure because even when the pressure gets there because he's holding on the ball longer, still nobody's open. So he doesn't play as well under pressure as he used to. And now you start getting the Brady decline narratives come back out again. So, but the,

it all traces back to the fact that just nobody was able to win matchups one on one. You go to Tampa Bay. And even though the offense is dramatically different in the system and all those kinds of things, just look at the array of receiving talent that they can deploy and they won't even adding to it since he got there. He brings Gronk out of retirement. They get Antonio Brown as a kind of roll of the dice to see what that can be as an addition last year. Even in the draft this year, they're grabbing guys like Jalen Darden laid on who could potentially make an impact later in the season or if people get injured. And that's in addition to Chris Godwin and Mike Evans and O.J. Howard and Cameron Braet. And there's just so many places for that.

Brady to go with the ball. So even if they face a defense, it's able to take away his top option or his second option, there's no shortage of place for him to go with. So you had a piece over the summer that I found fascinating about Brady's lack of decline. And one of the things in it, and this is something we talked about,

all of us talked about last September, October, when Brady looked like he was at least struggling a little bit to adjust the Aryan's offense, which is everybody makes a lot of mistakes in the area of the offense, especially early. So the stat that was, excuse me, the stat that was in the piece was, so Andrew Lott, Carson Palmer, James Winston, all of them had 40 turnover worthy plays in their first year in the Ariens offense. All of them had an over 5% rate of that. Brady had 12. 40 against 12. And it was less than 2% of his throws.

and I'm curious, Sam, when you look at the numbers, is that just Brady as being a better quarterback than everybody else, smarter than everybody else? Did Barians make any tweaks and make Brady more comfortable? I know earlier in the year they ran some of the more New England-y concepts, but what was that offense like? And what do you attribute Brady's success specifically with not making mistakes? One of the most impressive things I've ever seen from a quarterback

was when Peyton Manning went to Denver, realized right away that he just wasn't the same player physically as he used to be. He couldn't make the same throws that he made a career out of an indie and kind of retaught himself how to play the game, like on the fly during the course of the season in the first three, four weeks of that year. This is right up there with that, though, is Brady going to a completely different system, one that's the polar opposite of what he was doing in New England

for most of his career and not having the growing pains at every other quarterback, even good quarterbacks. I mean, Andrew Luck, you know, great quarterback. Carson Palmer, when he finally got that system with Bruce Ariens, had an MVP caliber year, and James Winston has been incredibly productive. But like, Brady not having the growing pains those guys had was just completely ridiculous. To be able to be as productive as he was and be amongst the league's best in terms of not putting the ball in harm's way was,

was absolutely crazy. And, you know, Ariens tweaked the system a little bit, but it was still pretty close to, you know, the pure distilled version of what he wants to run. Brady still had, like, the highest average depth of the target in the NFL, albeit a yard sort of lower than James Winston would have the year before. So, you know, Brady, this is Brady. This is why he's the greatest of all time.

I asked this question of a brayer before you were on, and I'm curious your perspective since you've studied it with a day, and all that stuff. Does what Brady is doing in New England and how much success they've had and how much success Brady's had adjusting that offense on the fly, does any of that change your view of the Patriots dynasty, how much success each person is responsible for? And because when I said it's to Albert, but when when Brady left, I said, okay, everything in the past is settled.

Nothing can change my mind. This is a bonus. And the more Brady does this, the more I change my mind on that. Where are you on that? Where are you on that Sam? Yeah, I mean, I think your starting point should always be that they're like the perfect combination, right? And they become a greater, they're greater than some of their parts. And that's why when you put them all together, that's where they won all the rings. But the longer Brady goes outside of New England and looks the same, I think the more you have to start skewing in his direction, particularly if Bill Belichick, you know, isn't able to create some sort of revival with Mac Jones or with whoever the next quarterback is.

If he toils away as a good but not great franchise absent of Tom Brady, and yet Brady keeps on trucking, dragging whatever the next team is to another Super Bowl, it's hard to not let that influence you and say, Brady does appear to be a guy that's just different. He is responsible for improving the level of everybody around him, and that's so far resulted in championships in two different franchises. and won't the first time of asking. The guy just rolls into the building of a team that was, you know,

trying to get to the playoffs but not a real Super Bowl contender and immediately spends half a season kind of working at the kinks and then just goes on a roll and wrecks everybody on his way through to a Super Bowl. In 2014, Lord knows I've made terrible predictions. In 2014, you said that Tom Brady was no longer a top five quarterback. Yeah. And you probably thought, okay, well, you know, when you were taking your medicine, he won the Super Bowl,

you probably thought, like, all right, well, eventually he'll just retire and I won't have to be proven wrong. Seven years later, I bet you didn't see this one coming. Now I'm hoping to get the decade under my belt. We can go, like, a full 10 years, you know, between me, writing him off.

Like, guys, you get, like, watches at a company. We can just give you, like, your 10th anniversary gift, your 15th, when he's playing, when he's like 52, we can give you a 15th anniversary of your prediction. Now we're talking. The scary thing is, like, when you look at, like, I read that article back a couple of times just to figure out where it all went wrong. And I think statistically it was sound.

Like the data did point to some kind of regression in his play. And I think at that point, he was declining. What I just didn't see was a complete reversal of that. You know, you figure the age he was at that point, it's roundabout when quarterbacks typically start to decline, although that's chained with him and Breeze and Manning since. So it sort of made sense. Even in the piece, it was like, you know, we're not going to see him drop off a cliff. It's going to be like a slow, steady decline until he just decides he's not good enough to win championships anymore. But the idea that since then, not only did he completely reverse that, but he physically now looks better than he has in his entire career.

Like that's the ridiculous part of this. He isn't going to hit whatever Wall-Pa Pat Manning hit in terms of like his arm's just a noodle now. Same with Drew Brees. and the thing that was the thing that takes out the other guy is the Brett Farves of the world is eventually a hit just breaks something. And then it turns out he played all last season on a torn MCL. They're like, if that doesn't take him out, nothing's going to. Like he's just going to keep on going until he decides it's time.

The conversation around Brady is so funny to me because I, we did a top five players in the NFL list a couple weeks ago with some of my colleagues. And I said, I think we have to put Tom Brady in the top five in the NFL. And there were people, and I don't know who these people are, they're Twitter people. And one guy was like, this is embarrassing. It's an embarrassing take. And another guy was like, I can't, you've lost all credibility by saying Tom Brady, whatever, he wants, the fifth best part of the NFL.

Okay. Let me break this down for you guys. Every time you add this guy to any team, they compete for a Super Bowl. I don't know how else you can judge this. Like, I'm sorry. Like, at some point, Tom Brady is a, is the most valuable player in football. Like, I just don't, or at least a top three one, because every time he seems to go someplace,

they seem to build an instant contender. Yeah, I agree. I think right now, I mean, he's the greatest quarterback of all time, and part of that is because he's been doing it for 20-plus years. But the ridiculous thing is right now he's at his peak. Right now is as good as he's ever been. Like, if you ever thought that Tom Brady was the best quarterback in the NFL in a given year, he's at that same level right now.

Okay, you've added Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rogers and all those guys to the league, but he's right up there. There was a piece on your site last January, I think, said that this last year was maybe his second best season of all time. Like, what else do we need here, guys? What else do we need? All right, that's Sam Monson.

He's the lead NFL analyst for football focus. Thanks for joining us, buddy. Thanks for me, man. Okay, thank you to Albert and Sam for joining us. Thank you to Stefan Anderson and Arjuna Ramqqqqa for production help. This has been the Ring Run NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network. Next up on this feed, it's Nora and Mallory for the Thursday show. Caitlin, Ben, and Stephen Ruiz on Friday.

I'll be back on Sunday. Please, please watch Slow Newsday. We have the aforementioned Mallory Rubinon. Amazing show we're going to be Justin Field, Justin Tucker. I invite myself onto the Ringerverse. It doesn't go so well. We'll see you then.