With the NFL season starting in a few months, a lot of people are wondering how teams will stack up against one another. One team that has drawn major interest are the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who acquired Tom Brady in the off season. Much controversy has ensued afterwards on whether the Buccaneers will be able to make a playoff push and whether they could possibly win the super bowl. In my opinion, there will be a lot of factors at play.
First, the Buccaneers defense in their last 6 games, when they went 4-2 to really push for the playoffs, was incredible. They ranked #3 in yards per game allowed and had the top rushing defense at the end of the year. Although they lost a key defensive lineman in Suh, they retained much of their defense and I expect them to gather more talent whether it is through trade or free agency because of Tom Brady. At this point of Brady’s career, he might not win in a shoot-out high scoring situation so a dominant defense is necessary if the Buccaneers want to win.
Secondly, a lot of this depends on the play of Tom Brady. The Buccaneers were 7-7 headings into their last 2 games. They lost both of their games, due to their QB Jameis Winston having major turn over problems, by 3 points and 6 points respectively. This meant that they were extremely close to being a playoff team if their QB had not struggled. Tom Brady might hit a brick wall or he might not. Going from one of the worst WR cores Brady has had, he now is throwing the ball to 2 Pro Bowlers in Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. A lot of people are going to point to the vertical style of play of the Buccaneers and how that is not Brady’s style. However, we have not recently seen in Brady in a circumstance like this where he has 2 WRs that are extremely proficient in the vertical offense. For the past 4 years, Brady has not had a physically dominating WR #1 and that might be a key factor in why people believe he is a short passer. He ranked #9 in completion rates throwing it 15 yards plus and had a QBR of 101 compared to Winston who threw at a rate 0.5% less accurate and a QBR of 94. Although this might not seem huge, this could be the difference between winning and losing a game.
However, one must acknowledge that last year might be Tom Brady’s worst in terms of his stats but it’s not clear whether it was due to his age or the team that was built around him. He was sacked more and threw for 5 less touchdowns than the season before. Nevertheless, the reasoning is not clear so we will just have to wait and see this season but I definitely think this team are playoff contenders now.
In the NFL, it is extremely important to be able to adjust quickly and make the right moves. The Buccaneers coaches like veteran QBs so picking up the best one there is made a lot of sense. Now it is up to them to make the necessary adjustments to help Brady get to the promise land once again. Furthermore, the playoffs always have a factor of luck in them. Some teams get lucky and some get unlucky so anything can happen once you get into the playoffs.
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