TAMPA, Fla. — Tom Brady’s team had just lost two games in five days, falling to the Panthers and Ravens. Dressed in full pads, the Bucs quarterback sat with his head in his hands at his locker a week ago following the latest defeat.
By the next morning, his 13-year marriage to Gisele Bundchen ended as well as the couple finalized their divorce.
“I’m sure everyone sitting in this room, everyone sitting at home is trying to wake up every day and do the best they can do for their families, their career, and I’m no different,” Brady said Thursday. “So you do the best you can do every day, so that’s what we’re certainly trying to do.”
Nearly at the halfway mark of the season, the Bucs are 3-5, a record Brady had never experienced in his previous 22 NFL seasons.
But with his personal problems behind him, it’s hoped, Brady and his team have the perfect opportunity for a reset.
Coach Todd Bowles and his staff spent the weekend analyzing what has gone wrong since season-opening wins at Dallas and New Orleans.
It’s also a chance for a restart in the sense that the Bucs could be getting back most of their injured players, including defensive tackle Akiem Hicks, and cornerbacks Carlton Davis and Sean Murphy-Bunting. Wide receiver Julio Jones is improving every day, and tight end Cameron Brate and safety Antoine Winfield Jr. have a chance to play Sunday against the Rams.
Then there is the Rams, who ended the Bucs’ 2021 season, handing them a heartbreaking 30-27 loss in a division-round playoff game.
The Bucs have an opportunity to use their 10-day break between games to pick up the pieces of a horrible start and move forward more confidently.
“Anytime you get a couple days off, you’re going to get a couple guys back and you’re going to get healed up a little bit,” Bowles said. “We understand we’ve got to put in the work to study, but the energy is good.”
On Monday, the Bucs had a bonus day of practice and decided to work on fundamentals that had been slipping during the first two months of the season.
“I think you always need it. It’s part of the reset process,” Bowles said. “Sometimes you get away from it as the season goes. Some of the things on film show the fundamentals were missing in certain guys, whether it was a missed tackle or filling the alley the right way. We got back to some fundamentals.”
Poor fundamentals and a lack of communication caused the Bucs to lose their last three meetings with the Rams.
Rams receiver Cooper Kupp has dominated the Bucs’ defense, averaging 120 receiving yards per game. He got free for long touchdown passes in each of their two games last year. The coffin nail in the playoff game was a 44-yard pass from Matthew Stafford to Kupp that set up Matt Gay’s winning field goal as time expired.
“I think they executed better than us down the stretch,” Bowles said. “I think they executed certain situational football things better than we did at the time we played them. Hopefully, we’ll get better at that when we play them this time.”
Bowles said the Bucs would be satisfied with any win. However, it’s hard to imagine one tasting sweeter than a victory over the Rams.
“I think we have (had) a bad taste in our mouth the last three weeks,” Bowles said. “We don’t have time to worry about the bad taste (from) the Rams. We’re trying to win a ballgame. That’s all we’re worried about.”
Could a win, especially against the Rams, jump-start the Bucs’ season?
Brady would benefit from some normalcy in the lineup. Jones could make his second straight start. The quarterback is gaining confidence each week in rookies such as tight end Cade Otton and running back Rachaad White.
There is time left in the season for a turnaround, as the Bucs trail the Falcons (4-4) by just a game in the NFC South.
Brady and the Bucs have been down, but they are not out.
“That’s part of what leadership is all about,” Brady said. “It’s pushing people in practice and trying to get a bigger sense of urgency. When everything is going well, things feel really good and easy, and when it doesn’t go well, it feels really hard and it’s a challenge
“Hopefully, you can look at the end of the year when all the games play out and say, ‘We dug really deep, we learned a lot about ourselves, and we tried to figure these things out. We battled through them.’ They don’t always go the way that you want. That’s the reality of the sport. Just keep fighting as hard as you can.”
