AP Photo/Mark LoMoglio
This is a nightmare scenario for Patriots fans who wanted the team to at least be “meh” this season while also watching Tom Brady succeed in Tampa.
Unfortunately, the Pats are worse than “meh” and with an ugly 27-24 home loss on Monday Night Football against the Rams, it’s see to wonder if Brady might be one-and-done in the playoffs for the second straight season.
Luckily for Tampa (7-4), New Orleans and Green Bay don’t seem to be pulling away with the top seed in the NFC anytime soon, so there’s time to get things right. On the flip side, Brady and the Buccaneers are now 1-3 in primetime games and 6-1 in day games. Brady’s also got five touchdowns and five picks in primetime, compared to 20 TD’s and four interceptions in all the others.
It’s been a while since Bruce Arians threw his quarterback under the bus, but his postgame comments couldn’t have sat well with the GOAT after Brady threw two ugly interceptions, including one that ended the game.
“We have Tom calling a lot of his own – we’re picking his own on the sidelines from the game plan,” Arians said. “I don’t think it’s a confidence problem whatsoever. It’s not lack of trust, it’s just lack of continuity within the offense of the whole picture. I think he’s getting confused a few times with coverage that might be causing some inaccurate balls. I don’t see it at all in practice. We’re not missing the deep ball at all in practice – that’s for sure. It’s just a matter on Sundays of hitting them.”
To be fair, Arians did back off the “it’s Brady’s offense” thing a few questions later, acknowledging the lack of practice time has been a factor more so than too many cooks in the kitchen on offense.
“It’s better to have them all spring and all summer than to throw them all together in the middle of the season. [When] you don’t have a spring at all or a real training camp, it’s hard on a quarterback, especially when you’ve done something [the same way] for 20 years and then throw all these guys at him. I don’t think you can have too many good players, no. Looking at the team coming in here this week, I don’t think they have a problem with having too many really good players.”
The Tampa Bay defense also no showed in this one, allowing Jared Goff to throw for 376 yards and three TD”s. Meanwhile, Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods combined for 23 receptions and 275 yards receiving.
As has been the case seemingly all year, Tampa fell behind early on a 4-yard TD reception for Woods. A beastly touchdown effort from 9-yards out by Mike Evans made it 7-7 and a Leonard Fournette 8-yard TD run put the Bucs up 14-7 midway through the second.
A Van Jefferson 7-yard TD catch made it 14-14, and thanks to a late half collapse by the Bucs defense, a long Robert Woods catch and quick spike from Goff allowed the Rams to grab a 17-14 halftime lead with a late field goal.
Ryan Succop tied the game at 17-17 early in the third but the Rams reclaimed a 24-17 lead heading to the fourth on a Cam Akers 4-yard TD run.
After several wasted possessions that quickly ended in punts – despite Antonio Brown (8 catches 57 yards) actually being productive – Brady finally led a game-tying TD drive and hit Chris Godwin from 13-yards out with 3:53 left.
Goff calmly led a methodic answer downfield and the Rams went back up 27-24 on a Matt Gay 40-yard field goal. Brady and the Bucs had 2:36 remaining, but Brady was picked off on 2nd-and-10 on an overthrown ball intended for Cam Brate.
“They did a good job (preventing shots downfield),” Brady said. “We had a couple shots but in the end didn’t come up with any.”
If you were a Patriots fan watching last night and saw Tom Brady with the ball and a chance to go win the game, you couldn’t help but assume you knew what was coming next. Instead, it’s now startling to watch him try to navigate his way through the mistakes and poor coaching of those around him. Still, Brady acknowledged he wasn’t very good either.
“I think the right word is disappointing,” he added. “We have to do. better job, absolutely. Tonight was very inefficient. The defense kept getting us the ball back, we just couldn’t make the plays necessary to be efficient. We had plenty of chances so, we’ve got to get it fixed.”
Whatever “get it fixed” entails will be quite interesting considering it feels like Arians and Brady are still at odds with how this offense should operate. We’ve said they’re still figuring each other out for weeks now, and the Bucs are quickly running out of time to get things ramped up for the postseason.
“”I think each and every week is different,” Arians added. “Right now, it’s just a matter of trying to win a ballgame. It’s about what’s best to beat this next team and it’s not about, ‘Hey Byron [Leftwich], have the whole offensive playbook in.’ Just say, ‘Take this game plan [and] try to win this week.’
“We’ll worry about all that next year.”
Next year may be here sooner rather than later if Tampa Bay isn’t careful.