Why is Tom Brady’s retiring? He still looks good as QB. No one really expected this.
And why did he retire in such a strange way, without making the announcement himself, letting it float out there as a rumor for a while?
Is Tom Brady angry, and going through something no one understands?
I think it has something to do with this season’s playoffs.
First, Brady was eliminated from them.
Second, did you notice how exciting the playoffs were? A perfect storm of thrills and close games.
And did you notice how the refs stayed out of it this year, and let the players play? Yes, there were still a few questionable calls, but it went from the typical 40% of big plays decided by dubious ref calls (maddening) to about 5% (OK we can live with this) which was sooo refreshing.
And perhaps strangest of all, and most shocking, TB12 was, for the first time in his career, the victim of a bad ref call. Brady was hit, got a bloody lip, complained to the ref that the hit was illegal, and the GOAT was promptly called for a 15 yard unsportsmanlike penalty. The first one in his career! 15 yards is often the difference between whether a team scores, or not. Another ‘bad behavior’ penalty was called against Tampa, too, early in the game, as well, when a big defensive lineman sternly lectured, in what felt like a menacing way, the Rams quarterback. These two penalties set the tone for the game, as the confident, “sportsmanlike” Rams raced to a 27-3 lead over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (last year’s Super Bowl champs).
Nothing destroys a football team’s confidence like punishment from officials. Perhaps athletes don’t like to be reminded that they live in a framework of rules—which have a life of their own and essentially dominate them. It’s what they most fear. Every player knows refs are the final bar to their glory. After every great play, everyone always looks around for a flag. There is one God in the NFL. It’s the ref.
Brady’s opponents in what may be his final game, the Rams, do have a bruising and aggressive front line. The odds are a thousand to one that cool, collected, veteran Tom Brady would be the beneficiary of unsportsmanlike penalties, not the victim of one. This was indeed a watershed moment. The Tuck Rule (bizarre, obscure) led to Brady’s first title and propelled owner Kraft and coach Belichick to one of the greatest dynasties in sports history, which included fines from the NFL for cheating on one hand, and yet lots of NFL ref help on the other. (Dynasties are made in mysterious ways.) If you don’t know Brady’s success and pro-Brady ref calls have coincided for all these years, you’re either a shallow Patriots fan or you don’t watch NFL games.
If you watch American football, you also know that given the NFL’s complex set of rules, penalty calls in football make little sense—but can easily determine the game’s winner.
I have seen teams receive bad ref calls and give up—almost as if they sense the “fix is in,” and quit trying. This does not lead to exciting, close games. Constant penalty flags also disturb a game’s rhythm and take the game away from the players, leading to dull, lopsided contests.
I have no idea whether an NFL ref on any given weird, game-changing call is fixing the game, or not. It’s not a big deal to admit I will never know.
Most of us exist in such a world. We’ll never know the deal on important stuff that happens. We just know when we smell a rat.
I’ve liked the Rams since I was a kid—I grew up in NYC, and should have liked the Jets or Giants, but I loved the Rams’ helmets (the curved ram horn on the side).
Partisanship, as random as it is, sharpens the senses; watching the L.A. Rams play the San Francisco 49ers this past Sunday, I could tell Fox broadcasters Troy Aikman, former Cowboy QB, and Jack Buck, son of St. a Louis broadcaster, were rooting for the 49ers; don’t ask me how I knew; the clues are too subtle to explain. I couldn’t understand why these guys wanted San Francisco to win, either. I could just…feel it. I was rooting for the Rams, for my own silly reasons. I didn’t like it that the broadcasters were rooting for the other team—they are not paid big bucks to do that; they are supposed to be professional, not sentimental. Aikman and Buck are pretty good at what they do, and I doubt many people would have detected what I did. I could just tell.
It turns out John Lynch—current GM of the 49ers—is a former colleague of Buck and Aikman—Lynch, a charismatic, engaged, ex-football player (Buccaneers) was a Fox Sports NFL broadcaster after he retired.
Buck/Aikman did not broadcast the Tampa Bay/Rams contest—but a week later, they were assigned to the Rams/49ers. I could tell they were going for the 49ers in the broadcast booth. After I found out about Lynch, a light went on.
Aikman knows a lot about personnel—which player was chosen in what draft for what role for this or that team (Lynch’s job) but he’s not nearly as interesting as Tony Romo—another ex-Cowboy QB, a younger and newer NFL broadcaster for CBS—on secretive winning strategies, the play of the game itself in front of our eyes, where Romo has quickly established himself as king.
Troy Aikman won 3 Super Bowls, but he’s not a terribly insightful announcer; he’s rather boring in a sold, competent manner. Brady has won 7 Super Bowls. Would Brady be a good broadcaster? TB seems to have no personality—perhaps that would help?
Romo, on the other hand, despite being a good player with excellent stats, won no Super Bowls, and in contrast to Aikman, as a broadcaster, he’s funny, relaxed, and loves sharing his superior knowledge of what’s happening on the field.
Sports fans have never expected much. Broadcasters like John Madden saying, “boom!” Horrible ref calls which none can protest. It’s almost like football has trained Americans for 50 years to be passive morons.
Smart, fair refs and insightful broadcasters like Tony Romo. This almost feels like a revolution.
Calling the Chiefs/Bengals game, Romo slyly alluded to a playoff gaffe he made as a player (which Romo’s broadcasting partner didn’t get) and Romo’s little joke went viral.
In the Buffalo Bill’s heart-breaking loss, Romo noticed (typical of him) exactly what the Bills did wrong at the end of the game. (No squib kick with 13 seconds left, too many pass rushers on defense)
When Tom Brady and the Bucs came back and tied the Rams 27-27, the refs did not help Brady at all; the Rams collapsed completely on their own. And when the Rams didn’t fold, and scored at the very end of the game to win—there was no ref call to save Brady.
Brady is royalty. He expects the NFL (the refs) to help him win.
Brady clearly got no help from the refs this year. Quite the opposite.
Proud, proud, proud, the man with 7 Super Bowls. Brady knows how much he means to the NFL’s ratings.
But could it be the NFL has turned over a new leaf? Have they come to realize that instead of refs favoring “great teams” and “great players,” the game is more exciting when the refs let the players play, leading to close and unpredictable results, no matter who wins?
Was the NFL sending a message, with its first-ever Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalty against Tom Brady?
Is this why Brady quit?