Tompa Bay: Tom Tom club

pappymojo

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I'm not too concerned. The Saints are a very good team. Tom is with a new team. New coaches and new receivers. One of those receivers is battling a hamstring injury. This was the first game of a very strange season where there was greatly reduced opportunities for the team to practice prior to the season's start.

I expect him to bounce back.
 

RG33

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It really has been something to see Arians talking the way he has — again, maybe it is just we are so used to BB/Brady, but I can’t imagine that it sits well with Tom.

I wonder if Gisele thinks he is being underappreciated by Bruce? Too soon??
 

tims4wins

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But this is part of the reason why I never thought he would actually leave. A year older plus new coach plus new teammates, there's just a lot of variables there and I thought, as much as he was sick of certain aspects of being on the Pats, BB maybe chief among them, that he would recognize that his best chance to win another ring was to stick with the greatest coach of all time for another year or so.
Yep. I said it in the game thread last night, but I think he underestimated how much the continuity and overall organizational philosophy / program mattered.
 

OurF'ingCity

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Ultimately I doubt Brady cares that much about the comments themselves and presumably agrees he needs to play better. But I'm sure Brady is pissed that now this is all he's going to asked about over the next week+ - which is precisely the reason Belichick never makes these kinds of comments, of course.
 

Saints Rest

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To keep the other Tompa Bay thread as a gameday fun-fest only.

View: https://youtu.be/Y5VnH2LrA6I


Arians tries to pull Brady out from the same bus he threw TB under in yesterday.

Tampa Bay is undisciplined even in press conferences.
Arians actually tried to dislodge Brady from under the bus by shoving Evans under there.
 

Saints Rest

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Bill Belichick somehow has only won NFL coach of the year one time more than Bruce Arians.

Anyway, as I mentioned in the game thread, I'll root for TB until he's no longer playing so I hope this was just rustiness and not the inevitable decline. But this is part of the reason why I never thought he would actually leave. A year older plus new coach plus new teammates, there's just a lot of variables there and I thought, as much as he was sick of certain aspects of being on the Pats, BB maybe chief among them, that he would recognize that his best chance to win another ring was to stick with the greatest coach of all time for another year or so.
The Devil you know...
 

DeadlySplitter

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my prediction: Bucs make it in as a WC team, win one game, get crushed the next game.

Gronk re-retires at some point this season. Tom tries one more time at 44 but finally falls off Kellerman's cliff.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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My guess is that Brady won't care about what Arians says. I just don't think it's going to affect him.

I do think that Belichick was probably pretty good at the subtle manipulation game in a way that Arians might not be -- and in playing good parent bad parent with McD. But by and large I think Brady's motivation comes from within and while Belichick probably was more tapped in to how to stoke it, at 43 I just don't think it's going to matter. Maybe it will at the margins. If things get off to a slow start I could see Arians's style throwing gas on the fire.

I do imagine Brady is feeling culture shock in a new way today that he probably underestimated. But I also think it's just as likely to be exhilarating to him as it is to be a negative. Probably a little of both.
 

CoffeeNerdness

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I thought his deep ball looked really good yesterday. It was the shorter stuff he had trouble with. They also couldn't run the ball worth a damn.
I didn't think they were bad and I'm probably nitpicking, but the least likely outcome of those passes was an actual completion. Definitely can't evaluate the full situation without a healthy Evans, for sure.
 

DJnVa

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My guess is that Brady won't care about what Arians says. I just don't think it's going to affect him.
It's possible, but there were stories that Gisele went to Kraft to complain about some things BB said. Now that could be her taking Tom's blowing off steam at home and blowing it out of proportion.
 

Captaincoop

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I'm not too concerned. The Saints are a very good team. Tom is with a new team. New coaches and new receivers. One of those receivers is battling a hamstring injury. This was the first game of a very strange season where there was greatly reduced opportunities for the team to practice prior to the season's start.

I expect him to bounce back.
Rule #1 of Old Brady: It's always the receivers' fault.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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It's possible, but there were stories that Gisele went to Kraft to complain about some things BB said. Now that could be her taking Tom's blowing off steam at home and blowing it out of proportion.
What maybe I should have said is that it's not going to affect him on the field much. I guess I don't know if he will care. He seems to do pretty well when people doubt him though and I wonder if perceiving it from coming from within would matter. Again, though, I don't think it's going to impact his play. You can take Belichick out of the room but I'm guessing you can't take 19 year of Belichick out of the player.
 

riboflav

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Dude, really? You assumed a player could somehow signal while running his route what he was going to do, like, I don't know, with hand signals, so pardon us if your takes get some pushback.

I'm as pro-Brady as the come, but:

1--the throw was still high and sailed. Your whole argument hinges on, I think, that if Evans contined then that was no INT (seriously, watch it below.) Had he continued there was STILL safety help there. He was throwing into double-coverage. QBs like Brady do that, because they trust themselves, but that wasn't a good throw.
View: https://twitter.com/barstoolsports/status/1305254252462387202


2--who's fault was the pick-6


All that said, Arians still should shut his mouth.
Why are his feet parallel in shotgun? He's always been staggered in his stance. 1,2,3, throw. Here he's added a hop and looks off balance to me.
 

DJnVa

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I think it's interesting that Gronk played 54 snaps yesterday (77%) and only had 3 targets. Anyone know if they had him blocking a lot? That doesn't seem the optimal use for him, especially if he's a bit smaller.
 

amRadio

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Wow something was off about the way he looked standing in the shotgun pre-snap but I couldn't place it. It's that his feet are parallel. That's really interesting, I wonder why that change was made and how it's working. What an awesome observation by riboflav.
 

riboflav

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I wonder if he feels he can see the whole field better as he back pedals this way? IDK. Basketball is my bag so hopefully one of our football guys can weigh in on why one would change his feet.
 

Gambler7

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I think it's interesting that Gronk played 54 snaps yesterday (77%) and only had 3 targets. Anyone know if they had him blocking a lot? That doesn't seem the optimal use for him, especially if he's a bit smaller.
From what I saw he looked like he did the last year he played. In other words, not impressive. Slow. Was tackled relatively easily.
 

lexrageorge

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I think it's interesting that Gronk played 54 snaps yesterday (77%) and only had 3 targets. Anyone know if they had him blocking a lot? That doesn't seem the optimal use for him, especially if he's a bit smaller.
From what I could tell, it appeared Gronk was lined up mostly as a "tight" end for blocking. I saw one replay where it seemed like he was holding his ground pretty well, but that's only one play.
 

McBride11

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I thought he looked funny in shotgun too, couldn't place it, just figured it was the uni. Good catch.

New offense with longer drop backs so the quick, short drop he prefers staggered but on a 7 step becomes less important?
 

lexrageorge

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I did have a couple of thoughts regarding Brady while replaying some of the game in my head:

1.) The QB sneak TD on the first drive was classic Brady. He recognized that the Saints left a huge gap just to the right side of the center, and the announcers hypothesized that Brady noticed it and went right for the TD. They weren't lined up for a sneak play, and being 2.5 yards out it would normally be a bit of a stretch to call a play where Brady runs it in.

2.) Between a truncated training camp and no preseason games, it's not 100% surprising that the Brady was out of synch with the offense at times. IMO, that was a factor in the first INT. The second was a bad decision by Brady, even the GOAT would make those about once every 100 passes or so.

3.) Some bizarre play calling from the Bucs that seemed to reflect McDaniels at his worst. On the first sack, Brady seemed to make a couple of fakes before he set up to throw downfield. The play took so long to develop that Hendrickson was able to catch him from behind. Not a play for a 43 year old QB.

4.) I agree that the deep ball looked good. The 4 DPI's called against the Saints were legit, and did remove 4 sure completions from the stats.
 

PedroKsBambino

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I don't know why anyone would think Brady wouldn't care about Arians comments---we have zero data to suggest that is the case and a bunch of second-hand reporting that he is very attuned to what is said about him by coaches and others.

Arians has a very different style than BB, and I think it's a lot more likely he pisses off Brady with his very open approach than not. Arians is used to being in charge and he has to manage a really difficult dynamic here: the player actually does know more about winning football games than the coach, and the player has more credibility with everyone who matters than the coach does (do we think if Brady tells the owner that he goes or I go that Brady is the one leaving?) That's very, very rare for a football coach. Brady is smart and I think fundamentally a great teammate so I don't expect him to misuse that, but if Arians thinks he can have the same media-friendly, chatty personality about his QB play that he has when his QB was Jameis Winston this will end poorly. I get that is Arians personality and I'm sure players realize this generally. But Brady is a unique guy at this point in his career. I'm not predicting disaster, but I read yesterday's Arians comments and for the first time thought there was a possibility it could go that way.

I would note that Arians reversing himself overnight is pretty strong evidence that he knows all of the above, and that in fact Brady does care...or at a minimum, that Arians believes he might care.
 

Royal Reader

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Arians actually tried to dislodge Brady from under the bus by shoving Evans under there.
Which seems the worst possible way to handle it, as now he will have a pissed off Evans on his hands, too.

My mental image of Belichick says something like "We need to get better in all three phases" and refuses to elaborate.
 

SeoulSoxFan

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Okay. I'll combine the two threads soon.

This doesn't prevent the regular NFL game thread from becoming a too TB-heavy one but we'll manage it if it happens again in week 2.

Thanks for the input y'all.
 

mauf

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You guys are making too much of Arians’s postgame comments. Most NFL coaches don’t share BB’s reticence with the media. It’s pretty clear that TB12 didn’t throw that ball where Evans was supposed to be; I’ll be surprised if he’s upset that his coach said so.
 

DJnVa

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You guys are making too much of Arians’s postgame comments. Most NFL coaches don’t share BB’s reticence with the media. It’s pretty clear that TB12 didn’t throw that ball where Evans was supposed to be; I’ll be surprised if he’s upset that his coach said so.
It's not that most NFL coaches don't act like BB. It's that Brady has only been with BB so it'll be interesting to track how this goes.
 

McBride11

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I think it's interesting that Gronk played 54 snaps yesterday (77%) and only had 3 targets. Anyone know if they had him blocking a lot? That doesn't seem the optimal use for him, especially if he's a bit smaller.
The most interesting thing is that he played that much. I had no idea watching the game. He was invisible besides a few lack-luster receptions. Given Howard and Brate surprised he saw the field that much in general unless most of the game was in 2 TE sets. I'd have to look back to see.
 

Bergs

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Which seems the worst possible way to handle it, as now he will have a pissed off Evans on his hands, too.

My mental image of Belichick says something like "We need to get better in all three phases" and refuses to elaborate.
It really is amazing how much all the other head coaches in the NFL for the last 2+ decades love to hear themselves talk.
 

genoasalami

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Arians idol was Bear Bryant. He coached with him. There is a picture of him over his shoulder in his office. Bryant taught him to coach em up hard and hug em later. For better or worse, that's his style
 

InstaFace

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It really is amazing how much all the other head coaches in the NFL for the last 2+ decades love to hear themselves talk.
A more charitable view would be that they consider it part of their job to feed the media, water them and turn them towards the light occasionally, and know that doing so helps the league by bringing more attention, storylines, and just sucking all the sports oxygen out of the room.

Belichick is probably glad the other coaches regard it that way, because it's an advantage to them all collectively (financially), but not helpful to any one given coach.
 

Royal Reader

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Arians idol was Bear Bryant. He coached with him. There is a picture of him over his shoulder in his office. Bryant taught him to coach em up hard and hug em later. For better or worse, that's his style
Eh, I don't think anyone believes Belichick doesn't go at his players, just not in public.
 

reggiecleveland

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Eh, I don't think anyone believes Belichick doesn't go at his players, just not in public.
No kidding. As for the alluded to Giselle complaints, were they about public or private comments ?


Ariana is a rah rah guys. His players have loved him. If Brady plays well he will go over the top in praise.
 

lexrageorge

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Eh, I don't think anyone believes Belichick doesn't go at his players, just not in public.
And it would be full Belichick to use the Brady/Evans miscommunication play that resulted in an INT as a way to critique offensive line play or something else that nobody else noticed because all eyes were on the INT.
 

Jimbodandy

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New system, new teammates (besides the corpse of RG87), and no preseason. It's entirely unsurprising that the offense and Brady struggled like they did. Plus some people are forgetting what a crappy team Tampa is. 7-9 last year, 5-11 the previous two seasons before that. This season will be a chore for Tom, even if they somehow pull 10-6 off.

But TFB won a SB a few weeks after going under investigation for cheating (when everyone west of Hartford was convinced that he was guilty). Then he won one during the season when he was wrongfully suspended for that supposed cheating. Some shitbum coach who can't stfu to the media is not going to be the thing that derails him. Having crappy teammates and losing a couple of MPH might.
 

genoasalami

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New system, new teammates (besides the corpse of RG87), and no preseason. It's entirely unsurprising that the offense and Brady struggled like they did. Plus some people are forgetting what a crappy team Tampa is. 7-9 last year, 5-11 the previous two seasons before that. This season will be a chore for Tom, even if they somehow pull 10-6 off.

But TFB won a SB a few weeks after going under investigation for cheating (when everyone west of Hartford was convinced that he was guilty). Then he won one during the season when he was wrongfully suspended for that supposed cheating. Some shitbum coach who can't stfu to the media is not going to be the thing that derails him. Having crappy teammates and losing a couple of MPH might.
They weren't crappy last year despite their 7-9 record. Problem was the QB was a turnover machine (30 INT). There was and is more than enough talent to make the playoffs. In fact, BB would be more than happy to coach them to the playoffs. He would have found a fix for Winston years ago.
 

Jimbodandy

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They weren't crappy last year despite their 7-9 record. Problem was the QB was a turnover machine (30 INT). There was and is more than enough talent to make the playoffs. In fact, BB would be more than happy to coach them to the playoffs. He would have found a fix for Winston years ago.
They had 7 wins last year, the last three of which came against Jacksonville, Indy, and Detroit. Their best win was against a 9-7 Rams team, the only team with a winning record that they beat.

I'm not saying that they had no talent at all, but I don’t see the upside. They aren't a 7-9 team with a tough SoS and had a couple of nice December wins to hope on.
 

genoasalami

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They had 7 wins last year, the last three of which came against Jacksonville, Indy, and Detroit. Their best win was against a 9-7 Rams team, the only team with a winning record that they beat.

I'm not saying that they had no talent at all, but I don’t see the upside. They aren't a 7-9 team with a tough SoS and had a couple of nice December wins to hope on.
The QB threw an NFL record 30 INT. DVOA-wise, the defense finished as the league’s fifth-best unit (-11.5%) and the good performances during the back half of the season gave the Bucs the third-best weighted defense (-17.2%). The pass defense jumped all the way to 12th (-0.3%), while the run defense dominated, finishing first overall with a (-30.5%) mark. The list of teams that have gone from 7-9 ish one year to deep run in playoffs the next year is endless. Take a player by player look at their roster. It's far from awful.
 

Van Everyman

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I watched way more of this game than I expected to ... my take:
  • Brady looks identical to last season from a skill perspective -- good-to-great pocket awareness, zip on the ball, some moments of inaccuracy, decent long-ball. The good news is that there's no drop-off.
  • TB skill players are much better than the Pats last year -- obvious in some ways but mitigated by the fact that Brady is still developing a rapport with these guys. Gronk is helpful for that reason alone in that he knows the guy.
  • Gronk will improve as the season goes on -- he's not going to re-retire unless he completely breaks down. Lest we forget, in 2017 he started really slowly before turning on the jets and having one of his best overall seasons. He's playing his way back into shape (and size, he looked significantly smaller).
  • This was a single game against a (possibly very) good team. If TB beats CAR next week in convincing fashion, this team will get a huge emotional boost bc of who Brady is in the eyes of both the media and his teammates. All the negative vibes they got from losing to NOLA this week will be flipped on their head and people will be making grand predictions about their potential.
All in all, I think they'll be pretty good and suspect all the dire predictions of dysfunction and lack of discipline are overstated. Arians isn't BB (who is) but he's a solid coach and a bit of a QB whisperer. The receivers are very good, obv. and I think Brady will find a way to make it work with them, regardless of his past history of modest hissy fits. Anybody who thinks Brady is just going to play out the string hasn't been paying attention. On top of that, while Fournette looked lousy, he will either get better or cede snaps to Jones who looked very good in the backfield. The defense I didn't have a good read on -- but the Saints didn't exactly dominate them. I expect Bowles to get them into decent shape regardless.

Without looking at their schedule, I would be shocked if they get less than 10 wins.
 

Shelterdog

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The QB threw an NFL record 30 INT. DVOA-wise, the defense finished as the league’s fifth-best unit (-11.5%) and the good performances during the back half of the season gave the Bucs the third-best weighted defense (-17.2%). The pass defense jumped all the way to 12th (-0.3%), while the run defense dominated, finishing first overall with a (-30.5%) mark. The list of teams that have gone from 7-9 ish one year to deep run in playoffs the next year is endless. Take a player by player look at their roster. It's far from awful.

Shitty but not a record. George Blanda threw 42 in 1962, and, post merger, Vinny Testaverde thew 35 in 1988--although that may have been because he was color blind.
 

genoasalami

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Shitty but not a record. George Blanda threw 42 in 1962, and, post merger, Vinny Testaverde thew 35 in 1988--although that may have been because he was color blind.
my bad ..he was the first QB with 30 TDs and 30 INTs in one season....
 

Silverdude2167

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Arians isn't BB (who is) but he's a solid coach and a bit of a QB whisperer.
Just one question on this.
Why is he considered a QB whisperer? The above this one talks about his QB throwing 30 and he was bad for multiple years. Is he a QB whisperer because he had Warner/Palmer and then Ben/Luck when he was an OC? Sure seems like he happens to be around good QB's and is less of a QB whisperer.
 

Shelterdog

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Just one question on this.
Why is he considered a QB whisperer? The above this one talks about his QB throwing 30 and he was bad for multiple years. Is he a QB whisperer because he had Warner/Palmer and then Ben/Luck when he was an OC? Sure seems like he happens to be around good QB's and is less of a QB whisperer.
Answering a question with a question--who considers him a QB whisperer? Well-informed NFL insiders, media members, or both? Because the guy does a great job of self promotion with the media.
 

Super Nomario

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Just one question on this.
Why is he considered a QB whisperer? The above this one talks about his QB throwing 30 and he was bad for multiple years. Is he a QB whisperer because he had Warner/Palmer and then Ben/Luck when he was an OC? Sure seems like he happens to be around good QB's and is less of a QB whisperer.
Arians was the first NFL QB coach for Peyton Manning and the first NFL OC (and eventually interim HC) for Andrew Luck, so he probably deserves some credit for their development even though they were amazing prospects. It's not like Adam Gase somehow getting credit for Manning.

Arians didn't coach Warner AFAIK but he picked up Palmer for a bag of balls at a time when Palmer looked washed up and coaxed his best season out of him (2015, at the age of 36) and a couple more good ones.

I'm not sure anyone really deserves the "QB whisperer" moniker but Arians has some positive data points in his history at least.
 

Kliq

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I watched way more of this game than I expected to ... my take:
  • Brady looks identical to last season from a skill perspective -- good-to-great pocket awareness, zip on the ball, some moments of inaccuracy, decent long-ball. The good news is that there's no drop-off.
  • TB skill players are much better than the Pats last year -- obvious in some ways but mitigated by the fact that Brady is still developing a rapport with these guys. Gronk is helpful for that reason alone in that he knows the guy.
  • Gronk will improve as the season goes on -- he's not going to re-retire unless he completely breaks down. Lest we forget, in 2017 he started really slowly before turning on the jets and having one of his best overall seasons. He's playing his way back into shape (and size, he looked significantly smaller).
  • This was a single game against a (possibly very) good team. If TB beats CAR next week in convincing fashion, this team will get a huge emotional boost bc of who Brady is in the eyes of both the media and his teammates. All the negative vibes they got from losing to NOLA this week will be flipped on their head and people will be making grand predictions about their potential.
All in all, I think they'll be pretty good and suspect all the dire predictions of dysfunction and lack of discipline are overstated. Arians isn't BB (who is) but he's a solid coach and a bit of a QB whisperer. The receivers are very good, obv. and I think Brady will find a way to make it work with them, regardless of his past history of modest hissy fits. Anybody who thinks Brady is just going to play out the string hasn't been paying attention. On top of that, while Fournette looked lousy, he will either get better or cede snaps to Jones who looked very good in the backfield. The defense I didn't have a good read on -- but the Saints didn't exactly dominate them. I expect Bowles to get them into decent shape regardless.

Without looking at their schedule, I would be shocked if they get less than 10 wins.
Agree with most of this; Tampa looked shaky at times as both Arians and Brady adjust in real time to the way their two ideologies can mesh to put up points. They had no preseason, and were playing a very good team. I think people are really discounting that Gronk hadn't played a football game since Feb. 2019 and had no preseason and a limited training camp. Expectations should be kept pretty low for him for the first few weeks of the season.

This could very well never work out for Brady and he may be done, but I'm going to refrain for pouring any dirt on his grave until Tampa is eliminated from SB contention.