Tom Brady believes NFL quarterback play has ‘gone backwards’

NFL

By Bridget Reilly

Tom Brady isn’t all in on the NFL quarterbacks of today.

“I think the quarterbacking has gone backwards a little bit in the NFL,” Brady told Yahoo! Sports just before his induction into the Patriots Hall of Fame. “I don’t think it’s improved. I don’t think the teaching’s improved. I think maybe the physical fundamentals might be a little bit improved because there’s better information out there for quarterbacks to study on mechanics.

“But I don’t think quarterbacks really are really field generals right now like they used to be.”

Brady knows a thing or two about what makes a great quarterback — he put together a 23-year career that included seven Super Bowl rings, five Super Bowl MVP awards, 15 Pro Bowl nods and is in the GOAT conversation — and lately he hasn’t seen the position lend the results it used to.

What today’s pass-throwers are missing, he said, is proper development — and it all stems from coaches who would prefer to control the games themselves.

“I think now, there’s this try-to-control element from the sideline between the coaches, where they want to have the control,” Brad continued. “And they’re not teaching and developing the players the right tools so that they can go out on the field and make their own decisions that are best suited for the team.

“When I looked at Peyton Manning, he was a guy that I looked up to because he had ultimate control. And I think the game’s regressed in a little bit of that way, based on what’s happened in high school football, college football and then the NFL’s getting a much lesser developed quarterback at this point.”

There is no shortage of star quarterbacks in the NFL nowadays, headlined by the likes of Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson, though teams without franchise players helming their offense certainly struggle more.

Brady will have plenty of opportunity to analyze them further and give his take when his first season as a Fox analyst starts on Sept. 8, when the Dak Prescott-led Cowboys take on Deshaun Watson’s Browns.