OT: Official 2021 Tompa Bay Gronkaneers Thread

[amfootball]

I feel like saying that Tampa Bay was the losingest franchise takes away from the talent and collective effort that Brady led.

It actually enhances it. Talent is one thing, knowing how to win and rise to a championship level is quite another. It's that part that Brady has been credited for from the owner to the GM to the HC and right on down to the players. IMO it is the most prestigious thing any org can say about its star player - "he taught us how to become champions."

What's even more silly is the talking heads and pundits focus on no look passes and who can run a 4.0. None of that has anywhere near the impact as a transformational player like Brady.

 

[Tony2046]

It actually enhances it. Talent is one thing, knowing how to win and rise to a championship level is quite another. It's that part that Brady has been credited for from the owner to the GM to the HC and right on down to the players. IMO it is the most prestigious thing any org can say about its star player - "he taught us how to become champions."

What's even more silly is the talking heads and pundits focus on no look passes and who can run a 4.0. None of that has anywhere near the impact as a transformational player like Brady.

Yeah Brady is special. What he did in Tampa was extraordinary.

But Tampa had talent. They just lacked championship leadership. Tom brought that. Not just to the players but to the whole organization.

How Brady handled himself through the first five years of his career put him on my top of the Patriot players list.

How Brady handled himself through Defamegate put him at number one on my blue collar list. He wouldn't throw the ball boys under the bus.

28-3 comeback put him on another level.

Going to Tampa and leading those guys to a championship is just mind-blowing.

He's the ****ing greatest for so many reasons.

 

[1960Pats]

Yeah Brady is special. What he did in Tampa was extraordinary.

But Tampa had talent. They just lacked championship leadership. Tom brought that. Not just to the players but to the whole organization.

How Brady handled himself through the first five years of his career put him on my top of the Patriot players list.

How Brady handled himself through Defamegate put him at number one on my blue collar list. He wouldn't throw the ball boys under the bus.

28-3 comeback put him on another level.

Going to Tampa and leading those guys to a championship is just mind-blowing.

He's the ****ing greatest for so many reasons.

And yet, Belichick gave Brady the same treatment he gave Bernie Kosar in Cleveland. I still don't understand why.

 

[Tony2046]

And yet, Belichick gave Brady the same treatment he gave Bernie Kosar in Cleveland. I still don't understand why.

Twenty years together is six years longer than any other HC/QB duo in NFL history. I'll reserve judgement until I see another duo get close to that. It is and probably will always be the most successful duo in NFL history.

 

[amfootball]

Twenty years together is six years longer than any other HC/QB duo in NFL history. I'll reserve judgement until I see another duo get close to that. It is and probably will always be the most successful duo in NFL history.

The ending is where we are all having trouble. To let Brady walk with no viable replacement is so unfathomable to me. Bill is always one step ahead but on this one he has egg all over his face.

What is particularly tough for me and I am only speaking for myself is I was the biggest Bill fanboy out there until he started messing with Alex for no reason, benched Butler, screwed with Gronk to the point that he retired rather than play for Bill, and then let Brady walk. Those series of decisions are the polar opposite of Bill previous to 2017. I have no idea what happened but my view of him torpedoed the last several years.

 

[Tony2046]

The ending is where we are all having trouble. To let Brady walk with no viable replacement is so unfathomable to me. Bill is always one step ahead but on this one he has egg all over his face.

What is particularly tough for me and I am only speaking for myself is I was the biggest Bill fanboy out there until he started messing with Alex for no reason, benched Butler, screwed with Gronk to the point that he retired rather than play for Bill, and then let Brady walk. Those series of decisions are the polar opposite of Bill previous to 2017. I have no idea what happened but my view of him torpedoed the last several years.

I'm not going to argue against any of those points but will just say that I think of the whole thing as a divorce. Two great people splitting up can get ugly and it did. That's all it will be with me.

 

[gobesmug]

The ending is where we are all having trouble. To let Brady walk with no viable replacement is so unfathomable to me. Bill is always one step ahead but on this one he has egg all over his face.

What is particularly tough for me and I am only speaking for myself is I was the biggest Bill fanboy out there until he started messing with Alex for no reason, benched Butler, screwed with Gronk to the point that he retired rather than play for Bill, and then let Brady walk. Those series of decisions are the polar opposite of Bill previous to 2017. I have no idea what happened but my view of him torpedoed the last several years.

I'll never understand the Butler benching of the entire game when the secondary was getting shredded by foles.

That def only needed to make 1 play and the pats win.

If Butler plays the second half I'm convinced they win.

 

[Pats1971]

Not sure what you're trying to say here.

Tampa was a perfect destination for TB. A team with talent that needed championship leadership. It was a win win. And along the way, once again, Brady made a lot of the mediots look like dumb asses.

Calling Tampa Bay "the losingest Franchise in sports history" is a misnomer imo. TB didn't go down there and turn a bunch of JAGs into great players rather he went down there and led a group of good to great players to a championship.

Brady took a huge chance going to Tampa. There was a reason Tampa had not won a playoff game in 19 years, there was a reason they were 7-9 the year before with all that talent. You saw the early struggles, the penalties, the bad coaching the bad gameplans. Talent does not mean anything if you do not have consistency, discipline and confidence. They had none of that. There is not a single person alive who thought of Tampa as a champ team until Brady went there, even then they were underdogs throughout the playoffs. This notion that Brady went to a super team rattling off superbowls and just went along for the ride is silly.

 

[VectorPrime]

Talent always wins in the NFL that’s why the 2011 Eagles went 19-0.

 

[Pats1971]

Talent always wins in the NFL that’s why the 2011 Eagles went 19-0.

You always see the teams that run out and grab every player in FA and think this will make them win. If you do not have strong leadership, you just have a group of talent. Thats what Tampa was, just a bunch of guys that had talent, they were not a team. Arians didnt seem to be getting anything out of it either. Most penalized team in 2019, bad turnovers, no sitatuonal awareness., but look how fast he is. Do you remember early on when Brady got to tampa, and people were upset because every pass was not going to Evans? Why is he not getting evans involved!?! Now forward ahead, look at what Scottie Miller did last season, he was not on the radar in 2019. Trying to force passes into Evans all day is what got them in trouble in 2019, among the other 500 discipline issues. That is what Brady brought there. Thats why I laugh when I hear, oh Brady went to a loaded team thats why they won. Had Brady went elsewhere or stayed on the pats, and they rolled Winston back out there, there is no title, there is no playoffs, they needed a leader and someone who could show them how to win. Patriots need that from a player as well right now. We have the coaching, but we need it from a player.

 

[Tony2046]

Brady took a huge chance going to Tampa. There was a reason Tampa had not won a playoff game in 19 years, there was a reason they were 7-9 the year before with all that talent. You saw the early struggles, the penalties, the bad coaching the bad gameplans. Talent does not mean anything if you do not have consistency, discipline and confidence. They had none of that. There is not a single person alive who thought of Tampa as a champ team until Brady went there, even then they were underdogs throughout the playoffs. This notion that Brady went to a super team rattling off superbowls and just went along for the ride is silly.

That's not my "notion" or what I said.

They had the talent and needed the championship leadership. Brady brought that. To the whole organization.

My only point was that calling Tampa Bay the losingest franchise subtracts from the "notion" or reality that it was a talented team. Pretty simple.

 

[Deus Irae]

Just a note on the Brady + Tampa talent discussion (and noting, again, that I get what Tony's saying, agree that his position points out a huge part of the team's success, and just think he's oversimplifying things a bit, as we pretty much all did throughout the season, due to the focus of all things Brady-related:

The 2019 7-9 Tampa team was not a team with Super Bowl talent just waiting for a QB, which is why so many mocked Brady going there. 7-9 Tampa needed more players. Let's not forget that 7-9 Tampa added:


Brady
Gronk
AB
Wirfs
Winfield
(Johnson had a couple of big catches, too.)


Let's also not forget that it wasn't just any QB who could win with that OL. Remember that the same OL that gave up 22 sacks in 2020 gave up 47 in 2019 (3.4% sack rate in 2020 v. 6.9% rate in 2019), and that was not all about plugging in random QBs. Patriots fans saw the same thing with 2018 v. 2019 v. 2020, where the sack rate went from 3.5% to 4.3% to 7.8%.


Adding 5 Pro Bowl/All-Pro level players, with one of them being, perhaps, the greatest sack avoiding QB in the history of the game, was more than just upgrading the leadership. It was taking a team that, with a league average or above average QB was a fringe playoff contender, and turning it into a team that went 8-0 after finally getting the bye week to put things together.

Now, lest people begin to think that I'm trying to debate Tony rather than just to add context, I'll bow out of this particular discussion trail for now.

 

[Tony2046]

Just a note on the Brady + Tampa talent discussion (and noting, again, that I get what Tony's saying, agree that his position points out a huge part of the team's success, and just think he's oversimplifying things a bit, as we pretty much all did throughout the season, due to the focus of all things Brady-related:

The 2019 7-9 Tampa team was not a team with Super Bowl talent just waiting for a QB, which is why so many mocked Brady going there. 7-9 Tampa needed more players. Let's not forget that 7-9 Tampa added:


Brady
Gronk
AB
Wirfs
Winfield
(Johnson had a couple of big catches, too.)


Let's also not forget that it wasn't just any QB who could win with that OL. Remember that the same OL that gave up 22 sacks in 2020 gave up 47 in 2019 (3.4% sack rate in 2020 v. 6.9% rate in 2019), and that was not all about plugging in random QBs. Patriots fans saw the same thing with 2018 v. 2019 v. 2020, where the sack rate went from 3.5% to 4.3% to 7.8%.


Adding 5 Pro Bowl/All-Pro level players, with one of them being, perhaps, the greatest sack avoiding QB in the history of the game, was more than just upgrading the leadership. It was taking a team that, with a league average or above average QB was a fringe playoff contender, and turning it into a team that went 8-0 after finally getting the bye week to put things together.

Now, lest people begin to think that I'm trying to debate Tony rather than just to add context, I'll bow out of this particular discussion trail for now.

You know that you're better at putting things in context than I am. So thank you for that.

 

[carmelo15]

The ending is where we are all having trouble. To let Brady walk with no viable replacement is so unfathomable to me. Bill is always one step ahead but on this one he has egg all over his face.

What is particularly tough for me and I am only speaking for myself is I was the biggest Bill fanboy out there until he started messing with Alex for no reason, benched Butler, screwed with Gronk to the point that he retired rather than play for Bill, and then let Brady walk. Those series of decisions are the polar opposite of Bill previous to 2017. I have no idea what happened but my view of him torpedoed the last several years.

Ya my view on him changed when he was willing to do that Butler **** in the super bowl while almost getting bailed out by brady

 

[amfootball]

Ya my view on him changed when he was willing to do that Butler **** in the super bowl while almost getting bailed out by brady

Everything changed from that one decision. It was so monumental and cost Brady his best SB performance of all time and a chance for us to legit three-peat. And somehow Bill has gotten away with never having to answer for that benching.

 

[Deus Irae]

Tryon’s name came up during Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians’ press conference on Sunday and Arians said that the rookie has “more than” met the expectations that the team has for him.

“He hasn’t been in pads in, what, two years? He’s whipping a lot of guys’ asses,” Arians said. “That says a lot about him. He’s carving out a real, real nice role for himself.”

Arians included starting tackles Donovan Smith and Tristan Wirfs among the players who have come up short against Tryon, who will join Shaq Barrett and Jason Pierre-Paul as pass rushing options during his rookie season in Tampa.

Bruce Arians: Joe Tryon carving out a nice role for himself - ProFootballTalk

 

[Deus Irae]

Right on the money

 

[Deus Irae]

Rookie WR Jaelon Darden fields a punt. He is competing with Scotty Miller and Jaydon Mickens for the starting PR job.

 

[Deus Irae]

After completions to Miller, Evans and Bernard, 2 min drive stops with a sack and a couple incompletions. Tom Brady slams his helmet. “Gotta make a (bleeping) play when you’re tired fellas.”

 

[Deus Irae]

Now that's a beauty.