After his retirement U-turn, this is not the season Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady wanted nor expected. A season of struggle for the Bucs offence hit a new low on Sunday with a shock defeat to the Carolina Panthers, the consensus worst team in the league heading into the weekend.
Brady's Bucs mustered just three points against the now 2-5 Panthers, who fired head coach Matt Rhule earlier this month and traded offensive weapons Christian McCaffery and Robbie Anderson to the San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals respectively. The Panthers' offence has been statistically the worst in the league and they have a middling defence, but they were too strong for Tampa Bay in every phase of the game, winning 21-3 in Charlotte to drop the Bucs to 3-4.
The Bucs remain top of a poor NFC South, but they have lost four of their past five games and are averaging just 17 points per game. Brady continues to look after the ball, throwing just one interception in seven games, but his tally of eight touchdowns is reflective of an offence lacking in explosiveness.
Brady, 45, enjoyed two strong years in Tampa, winning Super Bowl LV in 2021, and he called time on his unrivalled career in February, only to renege on that decision 40 days later and he returned for a 23rd NFL season.
Two-and-a-half years on from the end of Brady's 20-year stay with the New England Patriots, NFL legend Shannon Sharpe believes he is now missing the discipline of head coach Bill Belichick's regime as the Bucs' season threatens to go off the rails.
"I think Brady is missing Belichick more," Sharpe said on Undisputed. "I think he misses the structure that Belichick provided. I think the undisciplinedness (sic) he sees on this football team, the lack of accountability, that's rubbing Tom Brady the wrong way. He keeps saying they have to do the little things and that the little things are making the difference. He never had to worry about that with New England because coach Belichick drove a tight ship.
"Tom misses that. Tom's got everything he wanted. He got Todd Bowles, he wanted all these players to come back and do it again, he's got that. But sometimes as players, we get too close to coaches. Coach Belichick never had that problem. He's always treated players like it's college. Four years and you're probably out of here. He definitely didn't get close to Tom Brady, and maybe that rubbed Brady the wrong way.
"Sure Coach Belichick wants to win games, but he's got to win games his way now. Tom allowed him to do that, but I think Brady misses the structure. When you've got a father and he's tight on you, the first chance you get when you move to college and you get on your own you think 'Oh I ain't coming in till 3 in the morning, I ain't picking up nothing' - then you realise you missed that structure. You missed that discipline.
"There's a reason things went according to plan and things went according to plan when you came in at a certain time and got proper rest. Sometimes you don't miss things until they're gone. And I think Tom Brady misses that structure and discipline he provided. Sure Belichick misses Tom, but I think Tom misses what coach Belichick provided because in that environment Tom was able to thrive."
Brady and the Bucs do not have long to get things back on track with a short training week ahead of a Thursday Night Football clash with Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens.
