Looking at the Bucs 2021

Brady leading the league in passing TDs and Gronk is leading for TD receptions. Yeah, pretty dumb by Bill. Not on Babe Ruth level but up there for sure.

Not dumb at all. Both parties needed a change. And you keep falling into the trap thinking that Tom would be doing in NE what he is doing in Tampa. He walked into a loaded team in Tampa. He would not have had that in NE last season and would have continued to struggle with the team as happened in 2019.

Gronk was genuine in wanting to hang up the cleats. Right after the SB win against the Rams, Peter King interviewed him and Gronk could barely walk he had taken such a blow to the thigh, he showed King the damage and it kind of shocked King, the size of the bruise he was carrying. He was done, he had enough and wanted to retire and have some fun. That was nothing to do with Bill. Tom then moves, offers him some fun in the sun and of course a big contract and there you go.
 
Not dumb at all. Both parties needed a change. And you keep falling into the trap thinking that Tom would be doing in NE what he is doing in Tampa. He walked into a loaded team in Tampa. He would not have had that in NE last season and would have continued to struggle with the team as happened in 2019.

Gronk was genuine in wanting to hang up the cleats. Right after the SB win against the Rams, Peter King interviewed him and Gronk could barely walk he had taken such a blow to the thigh, he showed King the damage and it kind of shocked King, the size of the bruise he was carrying. He was done, he had enough and wanted to retire and have some fun. That was nothing to do with Bill. Tom then moves, offers him some fun in the sun and of course a big contract and there you go.
It has been great for Brady and Gronk, they won the SB and are lighting the league on fire so far this season.

It is terrible for Bill/Pats because moving on has proven to be his worst GM decision and one of the worst personnel decisions of all time because both players had/have championship football left. It's unbelievable how BAD this worked out for Bill who always likes to move on too early vs too late. Brady and Gronk blew up in his face.

The amount of stories and segments THIS week is amazing to me. This is going to go on for 3 weeks at least as the stories will carry over past our game on October 3.
 
It has been great for Brady and Gronk, they won the SB and are lighting the league on fire so far this season.

It is terrible for Bill/Pats because moving on has proven to be his worst GM decision and one of the worst personnel decisions of all time because both players had/have championship football left. It's unbelievable how BAD this worked out for Bill who always likes to move on too early vs too late. Brady and Gronk blew up in his face.

The amount of stories and segments THIS week is amazing to me. This is going to go on for 3 weeks at least as the stories will carry over past our game on October 3.

Again, you seem to be willfully missing the point. Brady and Gronk would not have won the SB in NE if they had stayed. The team is going through a necessary re-build. We saw what happened in 2019, the team whimpered out at home in the wild card round against the Titans, putting up just 13 points with Tom at the helm. And then last year we lost Jules for pretty much the year and had some key defensive players not playing due to Covid and the defense dropped to nearly the worst in the league. The team would have been even worse in 2020 than 2019 with Tom still here. The Patriots moved on and now we have picked up what could be a franchise QB for the next 10 years. What's your alternative? Brady stayed, not winning the SB with NE yet keeping the team too low in the draft to stop them recruiting a future quality QB?
 
Again, you seem to be willfully missing the point. Brady and Gronk would not have won the SB in NE if they had stayed. The team is going through a necessary re-build. We saw what happened in 2019, the team whimpered out at home in the wild card round against the Titans, putting up just 13 points with Tom at the helm. And then last year we lost Jules for pretty much the year and had some key defensive players not playing due to Covid and the defense dropped to nearly the worst in the league. The team would have been even worse in 2020 than 2019 with Tom still here. The Patriots moved on and now we have picked up what could be a franchise QB for the next 10 years. What's your alternative? Brady stayed, not winning the SB with NE yet keeping the team too low in the draft to stop them recruiting a future quality QB?
It's not about winning the SB. It's about pushing the 2 Goats out when they still had championship level football in them.

We are paying our 2 TEs $25 mil this year. Gronk is costing Tampa $5 mil. Just so bad by Bill all around.
 
It's not about winning the SB. It's about pushing the 2 Goats out when they still had championship level football in them.

We are paying our 2 TEs $25 mil this year. Gronk is costing Tampa $5 mil. Just so bad by Bill all around.
Gronkowski retired. He's an asshole for coming back like he did. He wasn't man enough to demand a trade, because it would have hurt his brand. Bill Belichick had zero control of Gronkowski retiring. None. He was still under contract. That's just a fact.

Brady didn't want to be here, also he's 44.
The Patriots weren't winning a Super Bowl last year with or without them, healthy or not.
The Patriots needed to try to rebuild on the fly like they've done a half-dozen times, and rebuilding around a 44-year-old Quarterback, even if he is Tom Brady, is so pants-on-head stupid that it's really amazing that so many people try to defend it.

I'm a Patriots fan. I'm going to be watching another 30 years hopefully. I think Mac Jones could be the next good quarterback for the team for a decade+. I'd rather not watch the Patriots go 9-7 instead of 7-9 last year, still miss the playoffs, and NOT draft Mac Jones, and suck for the rest of the 2020s.

This isn't rocket surgery, this is common sense.
 
Gronkowski retired. He's an asshole for coming back like he did. He wasn't man enough to demand a trade, because it would have hurt his brand. Bill Belichick had zero control of Gronkowski retiring. None. He was still under contract. That's just a fact.

Brady didn't want to be here, also he's 44.
The Patriots weren't winning a Super Bowl last year with or without them, healthy or not.
The Patriots needed to try to rebuild on the fly like they've done a half-dozen times, and rebuilding around a 44-year-old Quarterback, even if he is Tom Brady, is so pants-on-head stupid that it's really amazing that so many people try to defend it.

I'm a Patriots fan. I'm going to be watching another 30 years hopefully. I think Mac Jones could be the next good quarterback for the team for a decade+. I'd rather not watch the Patriots go 9-7 instead of 7-9 last year, still miss the playoffs, and NOT draft Mac Jones, and suck for the rest of the 2020s.

This isn't rocket surgery, this is common sense.
Bill tried to trade Gronk in 2018 until Gronk threatened retirement. He took a year off rather than play for Bill and then reunited with Brady. It is amazing to me that Bill would never budge on giving Gronk another contract and then goes out and spends $25 mil on two TEs that are not even half of Gronk combined while Tampa is paying Gronk $5 mil and he is leading the league in TD receptions.

How convenient to say Brady didn't want to be here when the following is what happened:

1. Brady tells everyone that's listening he wants a multi-year contract and wants to play until 45 (but he really doesn't want to be here);

2. Bill only offers a one year extension (w/ couple of void yrs) because he doesn't believe Brady actually wants to stay (but is surprised when he leaves);

3. Brady rejects offer and enters FA (which is what he really wanted?). But what if Bill would've offered a multi-year contract? Does he reject that as well?

4. By all accts Bill was surprised with Brady leaving (see zero QB succession plan).

Based on the above I'd say you're going to your grave being 10% correct on this.

Had the Patriots wanted Brady to stay and committed to him, as they had a long window of opportunity, he'd still be in New England. If you're arguing Brady didn't want to be back, based on where Brady's mindset was in February 2020, then you're absolutely right. It's like treating a woman like garbage for a few years, refusing to get engaged, then as you're breaking up, pointing out that she has moved on and wants out, so therefore it's a mutual breakup. Hey look, she found a new guy, so it was mutual. She's happy to be away, so I guess she never wanted to stay here. Total BS ... Tom had talked for years about wanting to continue playing into his mid-40s and to go out on his own terms. Years.

The team clearly, obviously was skeptical about Brady for years leading up to this. You never once heard from the organization the standard statement that "we want him to retire here and go out on his own terms" or anything like that, like you do with virtually every other athlete. It was always about an inevitable head-on collision because Brady wanted to play for longer than Bill wanted him, and Bill would have a younger, prettier successor who cost less money.

Brady wanted out in the end ... because he wasn't wanted. Certainly not on the level that someone should be wanted when they've played for that same organization for 20 years, won six championships, been widely regarded as the GOAT, and been a model citizen. If the Patriots wanted him to stay, they would have done so much more than they actually did.
 
Bill tried to trade Gronk in 2018 until Gronk threatened retirement. He took a year off rather than play for Bill and then reunited with Brady. It is amazing to me that Bill would never budge on giving Gronk another contract and then goes out and spends $25 mil on two TEs that are not even half of Gronk combined while Tampa is paying Gronk $5 mil and he is leading the league in TD receptions.

How convenient to say Brady didn't want to be here when the following is what happened:

1. Brady tells everyone that's listening he wants a multi-year contract and wants to play until 45 (but he really doesn't want to be here);

2. Bill only offers a one year extension (w/ couple of void yrs) because he doesn't believe Brady actually wants to stay (but is surprised when he leaves);

3. Brady rejects offer and enters FA (which is what he really wanted?). But what if Bill would've offered a multi-year contract? Does he reject that as well?

4. By all accts Bill was surprised with Brady leaving (see zero QB succession plan).

Based on the above I'd say you're going to your grave being 10% correct on this.

Had the Patriots wanted Brady to stay and committed to him, as they had a long window of opportunity, he'd still be in New England. If you're arguing Brady didn't want to be back, based on where Brady's mindset was in February 2020, then you're absolutely right. It's like treating a woman like garbage for a few years, refusing to get engaged, then as you're breaking up, pointing out that she has moved on and wants out, so therefore it's a mutual breakup. Hey look, she found a new guy, so it was mutual. She's happy to be away, so I guess she never wanted to stay here. Total BS ... Tom had talked for years about wanting to continue playing into his mid-40s and to go out on his own terms. Years.

The team clearly, obviously was skeptical about Brady for years leading up to this. You never once heard from the organization the standard statement that "we want him to retire here and go out on his own terms" or anything like that, like you do with virtually every other athlete. It was always about an inevitable head-on collision because Brady wanted to play for longer than Bill wanted him, and Bill would have a younger, prettier successor who cost less money.

Brady wanted out in the end ... because he wasn't wanted. Certainly not on the level that someone should be wanted when they've played for that same organization for 20 years, won six championships, been widely regarded as the GOAT, and been a model citizen. If the Patriots wanted him to stay, they would have done so much more than they actually did.
1) Brady wanted out. Offering him a multi-year contract would have been stupid, but beyond that, Brady wouldn't have signed it, because he knew the Patriots were trying to move on, because, you know, nature. If he could legitimately play to 50, then they would have offered him a long-term contract, and they would have done the rebuild on the fly.

2) Stop with the Gronkowski revisionist history. Unlike Brady, he'd been paid at the top of the market for most of his career. Belichick explores trades with everyone, and getting value for a guy who's made of glass, the poster-child for 'made of glass', and getting any sort of decent return for him would have been, you know, the right thing to do. Also, he didn't trade him. If Gronkowski is going to be that big of a baby for that, then I'm sort of sad he wasn't traded. Also, he was making a shitton more than $5 million his last year in New England.
 
1) Brady wanted out. Offering him a multi-year contract would have been stupid, but beyond that, Brady wouldn't have signed it, because he knew the Patriots were trying to move on, because, you know, nature. If he could legitimately play to 50, then they would have offered him a long-term contract, and they would have done the rebuild on the fly.

2) Stop with the Gronkowski revisionist history. Unlike Brady, he'd been paid at the top of the market for most of his career. Belichick explores trades with everyone, and getting value for a guy who's made of glass, the poster-child for 'made of glass', and getting any sort of decent return for him would have been, you know, the right thing to do. Also, he didn't trade him. If Gronkowski is going to be that big of a baby for that, then I'm sort of sad he wasn't traded. Also, he was making a shitton more than $5 million his last year in New England.
Stop. Brady did not want out. He wanted a mulit-year deal to age 45 not 50. Something he was talking about for years.
They did do the rebuild on the fly unless you missed this entire off-season when they spend $150 mil in FA and drafted a QB in the first round for the first time in Bill's history.

If he’d had a successor lined up, and Bill didn’t use the cap space on other veterans who weren’t part of the future (Slater, McCourty, Thuney), and if he‘d started an actual rebuild by selling off veteran players, then sure. That’s not what he did. So, that’s why I can’t buy the argument that he had to move on because of Tom’s age. There was no internal or external pressure to do so other than his pointless risk/reward formula, which essentially made no sense unless he really thought Brady would suck.

Gronk wouldn’t play for him either, which I think is even more damning considering the joke of a TE overpay they were desperately forced into two years later after flailing around with practice squad players that Bill drafted after he traded Gronk …. all because Bill wouldn’t just guarantee Gronk market value (Jonnu Smith and Hunter Henry making $25M now…lol) and wouldn’t give Gronk his own autonomy for fitness/rest/rehab.

Bill thought through superior coaching, execution, and dedication to The Patriot Way would win out. It didn’t.

Players > Coaches. Everything else is just emotional apologism.
 
It has been great for Brady and Gronk, they won the SB and are lighting the league on fire so far this season.

It is terrible for Bill/Pats because moving on has proven to be his worst GM decision and one of the worst personnel decisions of all time because both players had/have championship football left. It's unbelievable how BAD this worked out for Bill who always likes to move on too early vs too late. Brady and Gronk blew up in his face.

The amount of stories and segments THIS week is amazing to me. This is going to go on for 3 weeks at least as the stories will carry over past our game on October 3.

The abject stupidity of this post is mind boggling.

Somehow you think that the Patriots, just by retaining Brady, would have won something.
What friggin’ evidence do you have is that?
2020: no Gronk, no WRs, and COVID issues.

We would have had quite a bit less cap room as well for those signings that happened this year.

So stop with the lunacy. It’s so fucking old already.

Anyone sane knows that Brady leaving was not a mistake by BB. It was time.


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This Rams game is Brady's first time playing in LA. Of course the SB is in LA as well. :coffee:
 
The abject stupidity of this post is mind boggling.

Somehow you think that the Patriots, just by retaining Brady, would have won something.
What friggin’ evidence do you have is that?
2020: no Gronk, no WRs, and COVID issues.

We would have had quite a bit less cap room as well for those signings that happened this year.

So stop with the lunacy. It’s so fucking old already.

Anyone sane knows that Brady leaving was not a mistake by BB. It was time.


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It's not about winning. It's about allowing the GOAT of all to finish his career a Patriot. The time to extend him was in 2017/2018 when he wanted to be extended which was right after we traded Jimmy. Bill bet Tom would still not be viable past age 42. That is where he was completely WRONG and looks like a total CLOWN right now with Brady playing the best football of his career after just collecting his 7th title in year one.
 
It's not about winning. It's about allowing
A lot of teams do that. Care less about winning than keeping fan favorites. This is a TEAM sport. It's not about one player and to quote Herm Edwards,

You play to win the game.

Winning is what matters and as Bill has shown with other players, better to move on too soon than too late.

Besides, despite your narrative, Brady didn't want to be here. Forcing him to stay would not have served him or the team. They didn't have to give him that contract with the no franchise clause. He wanted to go, and after 20 years they were nice enough to let him. Even if they didn't want him, they could have made it a lot uglier by trading him where they wanted to.

Enjoy watching him light it up in Tampa. Enjoy it when they most likely beat the Patriots and you can use it as an 'I told you so.'

But there is no need to change history to make Brady smell like roses and make Belichick out to be a buffoon.

It is done and over.
 
A lot of teams do that. Care less about winning than keeping fan favorites. This is a TEAM sport. It's not about one player and to quote Herm Edwards,

You play to win the game.

Winning is what matters and as Bill has shown with other players, better to move on too soon than too late.

Besides, despite your narrative, Brady didn't want to be here. Forcing him to stay would not have served him or the team. They didn't have to give him that contract with the no franchise clause. He wanted to go, and after 20 years they were nice enough to let him. Even if they didn't want him, they could have made it a lot uglier by trading him where they wanted to.

Enjoy watching him light it up in Tampa. Enjoy it when they most likely beat the Patriots and you can use it as an 'I told you so.'

But there is no need to change history to make Brady smell like roses and make Belichick out to be a buffoon.

It is done and over.
I was referring to winning the Super Bowl as he did in Tampa which everyone seems convinced he was never going to be able to do here again despite winning 6 rings, 3 of which he won at ages 37, 39, 41. So all he proved when he went to Tampa is that he was still that guy to bring a team to championship with a roster that was not bottom third in the league. Something NO ONE around here seems to want to acknowledge on any level - that Bill totally mismanaged the roster forcing us to take a mulligan on last year scraping Newton off the trash heap because he was cheap and then this year attempt to literally rebuild on the fly by spending $150 the first week of FA. That's what losing orgs have done for years but somehow when Bill does it, it means he is smart. No. He completely mismanaged the roster in Jete like fashion for years.

This narrative that Brady did not want to be here is complete revisionist history. As I posted earlier in the thread but will post again:

1. Brady tells everyone that's listening he wants a multi-year contract and wants to play until 45 (but he really doesn't want to be here);

2. Bill only offers a one year extension (w/ couple of void yrs) because he doesn't believe Brady actually wants to stay (but is surprised when he leaves);

3. Brady rejects offer and enters FA (which is what he really wanted?). But what if Bill would've offered a multi-year contract? Does he reject that as well?

4. By all accts Bill was surprised with Brady leaving (see zero QB succession plan).

Had the Patriots wanted Brady to stay and committed to him, as they had a long window of opportunity, he'd still be in New England. If you're arguing Brady didn't want to be back, based on where Brady's mindset was in February 2020, then you're absolutely right. It's like treating a woman like garbage for a few years, refusing to get engaged, then as you're breaking up, pointing out that she has moved on and wants out, so therefore it's a mutual breakup. Hey look, she found a new guy, so it was mutual. She's happy to be away, so I guess she never wanted to stay here. Total BS ... Tom had talked for years about wanting to continue playing into his mid-40s and to go out on his own terms. Years.

The team clearly, obviously was skeptical about Brady for years leading up to this. You never once heard from the organization the standard statement that "we want him to retire here and go out on his own terms" or anything like that, like you do with virtually every other athlete. It was always about an inevitable head-on collision because Brady wanted to play for longer than Bill wanted him, and Bill would have a younger, prettier successor who cost less money.

Brady wanted out in the end ... because he wasn't wanted. Certainly not on the level that someone should be wanted when they've played for that same organization for 20 years, won six championships, been widely regarded as the GOAT, and been a model citizen. If the Patriots wanted him to stay, they would have done so much more than they actually did.
 
Fun fact: Every season when Brady faced Stafford - Brady’s team won the Super Bowl.

2014, 2018 and 2020.
 
Rams are having their way easily...
They looked great. Bucs are down their 3 starting corners and it showed. They are expected to sign someone this week. Could be Sherman.
 
1. Fair enough. It's a bad loss like Miami's was for differing reasons, even if some did crop up there, too.
2. It's an offensive league. Rodgers was the MVP. Like I said, Brady is not a top 3-5 QB anymore as we saw last night in LA. The Ds and RBs won him his last 2 rings. His last great Brady game was in KC in January of 2019. And, quite frankly, what good are stats if big mistakes are made at bad times or Brady throws an atrocious 3 INTs in the NFC title game on the road? He wasn't good.
3. I think the SB vs Atlanta was a major outlier in a sense the lead was so big, everyone felt the game was over and no shenanigans were needed, and then all of a sudden it was too late and too hot to try to do anything to influence it. The next SB proves this. The comeback was so great, Goodell was out in full force with smirking Steratore in tow. Remember the Dion Lewis "fumble" vs Jax in the title game where he corralled it and pinned it to his hip, hit the ground, the ground caused the fumbled? It wasn't even a fumble and yet somehow they called it one. Then the narrative shifted to the whistle blowing (which was also wrong). That's just one odd call that happened in that game that, the team fought through to overcome. I realize bad calls happen to all teams, but those are your one off holdings or PI calls or whatever people disagree with (saw a bunch of theses yesterday, Bethal block in the back, some obvious holdings), not these out of the woodwork momentum shifting calls that are so clearly wrong on replay. There's so many of them we forget because of how good the Pats teams were to overcome them. We don't have that now with a rookie QB during a rebuilding process. I just think it's suspicious that Goodell's own officials also miraculously don't know the rules when all other officials in other leagues at least know what the rules are. Look at the Detroit game yesterday. The clock expired for 2 full seconds, maybe even 3, and they were literally wanting to see one last pass from Lamar Jackson to see if what could happen, happened. That's under-handed. Can you imagine if the Pats were victim of that? We have been, but it would be another example of egregious ineptitude by 8 humans standing right there.
4. Correct. The NFL hates the idea there is the same teams playing in a SB, or just the one team, the Pats. It's bad for business. I thought everyone knew this.
5. As far as your point about bad calls, why have rules been changed after seasons (with this frequency compared to other sports) or during them? NE only appeared to have benefitted in Pitt on the TE using the ball to trap on the ground to catch it, when in reality, it was the right call. Then we see the control of a catch concept come up in the SB, where that week Goodell actually said "we need to change it after season", yet it's changed against NE in favor of Philly on the Clement incompletion where Flowers grabbed his arm forcing a shift and jostle of the ball and one foot down. It's so clearly not a catch on the replay. No other team has rules changed on them during games. It's bizarre to watch in real time. Or, even the Saints/Rams thingy. That was Goodell wanting to help out Kroenke and his financial issues in LA. Seriously. Owners just loaned him money for the financial pickle he is in. How do 2 refs stand there and miss such a call? I won't get into the Saints not being on great terms with Goodell as a possible extra reason.
Seemed like a better spot to address the Brady stuff.

Last year, Brady had 10 games over 100 passer rating, 12 including the post season. That is more than Mahomes had, and he was rated #1 on the NFL 100. This year, he is #1 in TDs, #2 in Yards, and #7 in Passer Rating through 3 games. As far as the big mistakes made at bad times, do you think that's only Brady, or only now that he's old? Here are the years in which Brady had at least 1 game in the Playoffs with under 80 Passer Rating (meaning, he played outright bad): 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020. 14 years. 2 of the years not listed, they weren't in the playoffs. 2004, 2014, and 2017 are the only 3 years where he had a clean run of consistently great play in the playoffs. But it's the playoffs, that kind of thing happens. Regardless, it's not proof that he's regressed, an annual playoff clunker is a Brady tradition. As far as his last great Brady game, how about last week, with 5 TDs, 0 picks, and a 130 passer rating? Want more yards? How about this week, 432 yards, 0 picks, 2 total TDs? Want Yards and TDs together? How about the opener, with 379 yards, 4 TDs?

Last night, Brady threw for more yards than any other QB in the league, with 2 TDs and 0 picks, 75% completion, and a 103 passer rating, getting them 24 points, which would have been enough to win vs half the teams in the league. Yet that's supposed to prove that he's not a top QB anymore? Just because his defense is more porous than a paper towel? Sorry but I think you're objectively wrong on this one.
 
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