Tom Brady is right.
The NFL is a bunch of bad football so far this season.
The Thursday Night Stink Between the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos was Exhibit A.
The Colts’ 12-9 overtime win was so rancid that even the biggest NFL fan had to search the cable for a Golden Girls marathon on the Hallmark Channel. Neither team could score a touchdown.
But that sort of thing has actually been commonplace in the first four weeks of the season.
The games were filled with silly mistakes, inane offenses, bad practice decisions and terribly blown runs in games that should have been finished.
“There’s a lot of bad football from what I watch,” Brady told the media on Thursday before the start of this game. “I watch a lot of bad football. Bad quality of football. That’s what I see.”
Brady should know bad football. His Tampa Bay Buccaneers went off to a tough 2-2 season and struggled most of the time, trying to get into the end zone from the red zone.
Brady, 45 and in his 23rd season, said it was obvious his team wasn’t playing well.
“We watch the movie and understand why,” he said. “You return the ball. You are falling behind. You don’t play well on the third down. You do not score points in the red zone. It’s always the same thing. Things you went to work on.
But a lot of the stuff that Brady talks about is happening across the league.
Blame the NFL for these debacles.
There are a few factors that must be a reason why.
A) Teams don’t train as much as they used to; something that was agreed at the last CBA.
B) Some coaches are not bringing their star quarterbacks or star players into preseason games.
C) Greedy owners got rid of a preseason to get paid on an extra regular season game.
D) There are a few coaches who are definitely in over their heads and have sloppy games that should be easy to maneuver. The Colts-Broncos’ Amazon prime time was ridiculously lousy on offense — nearly unassailable.
At one point in the first half, there were five punts in a row – four of them were on three-and-three drives. The halftime score was 6-3, Denver.
Who was pitching?
It really felt like a baseball game, not football where the teams throw almost every down, and the coaches go there all the time like they’re playing Madden.
At the half, the Colts had 144 total yards. The home team, the Broncos, had a meager 103. Denver was 2-for-7 on third down, while the Colt was 3-for-8.
It was a pathetic party, that’s for sure.
Of course, a league would love to have parity – where all teams have a fair chance of winning and it’s not just the haves and have-nots.
But you want quality football in the process. This mess doesn’t make a fan feel good about their team and gives them hope that they can make it through the playoffs playing shoddy football.
It’s not just bad teams playing badly. Some very good teams also played badly. The Cincinnati Bengals, who went to the Super Bowl last season, are off to a terrible start. In Game 1, QB Joe Burrow had more turnovers than a bakery — four interceptions and a fumble.
The Baltimore Ravens played terrible football and blew huge double-digit second-half leads in Miami and Buffalo. Easily, the Ravens should be 4-0.
Denver’s first-year head coach is so bad he already has a nickname: Nathaniel “Can’t” Hackett.
And his quarterback Russell Wilson didn’t help at all. He was supposed to be the saviour. Everyone thought Denver just needed a star QB to accompany its stud defense. The recipe was supposed to get them to the Super Bowl.
But Wilson has been a dud so far. Somehow he didn’t have a touchdown on Thursday night. “It’s not just about him,” Hackett said of Wilson after the game. “It’s on all of us.”
And the stench of bad play is apparently all over the NFL.
As if this game wasn’t bad enough, wait until next Thursday night when the showpiece primetime game will be the lowly Washington Commanders vs. the ugly Chicago Bears. Bet the least. NOW!
Simply awful.